An Unusual Case Of A "Diss Track"

I know, it's not common for me to talk about popular, current singles on here as this is really a place for more obscure tracks, but it's possible that there are others out there who have had trouble in the past trying to find a stereo version of the song "Give It To Me". No, not the song from the J. Geils Band or the song by Rick James. Rather, the new tune from Timabaland, Nelly Furtado, and Justin Timberlake, from Timba's "Timbaland Presents Shock Value" CD. If you look at the Billboard Charts for the number one songs in the U.S. this year so far… this ranks up there with the "best" song, IMO. I mean, compared to garbage like Beautiful Girls, Girlfriend, Glamorous, and Umbrella, Give It To Me and Makes Me Wonder are the two best. I only realized now how the year looks bad when you just look at the number ones, but beyond that you see it's not too shabby.

I should've tried to do this a little earlier, but I was only inspired a few days ago to try and find a stereo version of the song, as on the music search sites you pretty much can only find a crappy mono version of the tune. I used Project Playlist, an underrated spot to look for music. Hey, when they give you the URL to the songs you put on your playlist, you're not going to listen to their suggestion of using iTunes to download it! I was able to find a stereo version, which I downloaded ASAP and that's what I'm uploading for y'all.

Reading the Wikipedia entry cleared up for me the big mystery of who exactly the singers were dissing in the song. Hey, I don't watch MTV or read any of the music sites. Furtado disses Fergie, which is fine by me, except that the start of their "feud" is rather insipid, to say the least. So is Justin ripping on Prince just because he made a sarcastic reference to Sexyback. I mean, they come off as being whiny and petty to me. I guess I'm too used to the rap beefs such as Tupac vs. The Notorious B.I.G. More interesting to me is the feud between Timbaland and Scott Storch. I prefer Timba to Storch quite a bit, so I'll take his side in it… but hopefully Scott is the one lying in the situation!

Anyway, no matter what you think of the lyrics, the beat is scorching hot and I figured a few people out there would want to have a stereo version of the tune.

Timbaland/Nelly Furtado/Justin Timberlake-Give It To Me (192Kbits/second)

http://www.zshare.net/audio/31586500378c4a/

Thursday being the 30th anniversary of Elvis passing away, I will post a few songs of his.

Saturday Night's Alright For Partying

Sunday and Monday were not so great for me, as Sunday I found out that someone I used to talk with and was a fellow wrestling fan passed away at the age of 25 in a car accident. Monday was a dentist appointment, finding out I will need to have a crown put in my mouth (the bill will crown my ass!) and then finding out I have a bruise on the back of my leg and yet having no clue how I ended up with the bruise... but Saturday was a lot of fun. From my blog:

Saturday night the plan was to meet up with the same friend that I saw on Friday night. But, he never called, which I took to mean that he wasn't available to go out; that was disappointing, yeah, but beforehand I was planning on going out this weekend… I mean, that was the plan even before the arrangements to meet up with my pal on Friday night. So, I decided to go back to downtown Orlando and return to the fantastical place known as Mako's. Even for that place it was a wild time while I was there.

As it should go without saying, the female employees there looked fantastic in their lingerie outfits. Hell, more than one lady wore nothing more than tiny straps of tissue paper on her boobs that covered her areola and not much else! Oh what a fantastic place this is…

The one female employee that I mentioned last month during my blog about my previous trip to Mako's happened to be there again. She seemed to remember who I was, although maybe I was just being played like a fiddle again… ok, I'm sure that when I chatted with her I WAS being played like a fiddle, but if you could have seen what she was wearing (or rather, not wearing) then you probably would've done the same thing! Wow die she ever look fantastic on this night.

Several pairs of fake boobs. They were spectacular fake boobs… whether I'm saying that they were "spectacularly fake" or "the fake books looked spectacular"… I'm not quite sure myself. The most noteworthy thing about that was that even though the chick wasn't supposed to do so, a few times one of the ladies with the implants decided to lift up her shirt and expose her large breasts. I didn't complain! Neither did many of the guys there.

Speaking of two girls being attracted to each other, there was a moment where a male bartender convinced a pair of girls to give each other bodyshots. Not to continue the crass demeanor of this particular blog, but I did in fact enjoy seeing each girl lick the booze off of each other's stomach and chest, and seeing it happen a few feet in front of me… memories that will last a lifetime!A guy that I've talked about last year (and was at Mako's the last time I was there last month),

The guy I refer to as Not F. Murray Abaraham, as no shit he looks like the Academy Award winning actor who was Salieri from Amadeus and was in Scarface… and that's really it for movies I knoew he was in… anyway, he was there again on Saturday night and sometimes, his exuberant and unique dancing got the ladies' attention, and that was the case here. It looked as if he had a chance to score with a lady-she was full figured, but nothing wrong with that-and I hope he was able to do so.

But, to get to today's upload... also from my blog:

They always play an interesting mix of tunes there, but even I was taken aback by one tune being… a Lords of Acid song known as "Pussy". I'll never forget the day way back during my sophomore year at ISU when I was in a friend's dorm room and at random he downloaded the song, mainly because of its title. The opening seconds of the song is a 2 Live Crew-esque beat and then a cat meowing, which shocked me and him on first listen. Then, the lyrics concern a girl singing about her own cat and her friend's cat… at least that's what they want you to think, but it's clear that the girl is singing about, to be blunt, vagina. Believe it or not, one line actually goes, "My pussy's always hungry for a big chunk of meat." I swear, it's true!

To share with you the great experience of listening to this classic tune, here is the upload.

Lords of Acid-Pussy (5.67 MB, 192Kbits/second)

http://www.zshare.net/audio/3138631eba07f9/

I'll be back on Wednesday with a quick entry on something you probably wouldn't expect me to post, and then Thursday and Friday I will put up some Elvis songs, due to it being the 30th anniversary of his passing.

Orlando, Jump On It

My weekend turned out to be a lot of fun and different from the norm also. I went out both nights to downtown Orlando and its nightlife. Tomorrow night I'll talk about what happened on Saturday, but Friday night… bits and pieces taken from my MySpace blog:

I just got back minutes ago from a night out with someone I know from living in Belvidere (he's also from the town... hell, we graduated the same year, 2000). He happens to be down here in Orlando on an internship for a construction company. We were able to get into contact with each other via the power of the Internet so I drove over to his place and from there we went to downtown Orlando.

First, we ended up at a tiki bar (of all places) in downtown Orlando on that strip of bars on Wall Street. It was known as the WaiTiki. It wasn't too shabby. Many of the female patrons there were far from being shabby… From there we ended up at a nearby bar known as Casey's.

From there we went to Lattitude's, a bar that's literally on the roof on Church Street-yes it's a place I've never been to either-and that was a lot of fun too. Sure, if you're a dude and you expect one of the MALE bartenders to wait on you then you're shit out of luck-finally a female one waited on me-but other than that, no complaints. There was also the added bonus of seeing one girl stick her face into her friend's rather sizeable breasts... they were freaks! They weren't the only ones there, though. As you can see it was a night filled with fun and LOL's.

Anyway, I did discover a song while at Latitudes that I had not heard before, amazingly. It's a song from Sir Mix-a-Lot. No, it's not THAT song... it was played a little earlier in the night at Latitudes. Rather, it's a rap that samples the Grandmaster Flash song Apache. It's known as "Jump On It" and it was pretty popular at Latitudes. I liked it too, although nothing will quite top the Tommy Seebach Band version of Apache, as most of us can only dream of being as awesome as Tommy Seebach.

As you can see from the lyrics it is a song that talks about various cities and areas across the country, including Orlando and namechecks the great DJ Magic Mike. It's from '96, meaning it was after Baby Got Back became a certifiable classic. To be honest I've never known a whole lot about his career besides that one song, but I'm glad I heard "Jump On It" as he did a great job enhancing what was already an awesome song.

Sir Mix-a-Lot-Jump On It (128Kbits/second)

http://www.zshare.net/audio/31226519534b03/

I'll be back tomorrow night with the second part of my weekend recap, plus a song I heard this past Saturday night that I knew from years ago but never thought I'd hear in public. Trust me, it's tremendous.

Love Is The Drug And I Need To Score

Note: I wrote the below early on Friday. I wanted to wait until Friday night to post it, but of course during the late afternoon-early evening hours, the cable was out. As a digital cable subscriber, that meant no cable Internet either. That is why this is being posted now, after I got back from my night on the town. I consumed a large Red Bull drink infused with alcohol (rum, to be exact; yes, rum and not vodka; it's good, actually) so that's why I'm still up.

Today I decided not to spend a lot of time with this blog. Hey, I have other things planned, including writing something for my Livejournal page and hopefully meeting up with a person I know from my Illinois days who happens to be in the area at this time.

But, I still want to upload a song, and one that is the usual you would expect from me, and something that's a little different from what I've put up this week, which has been rock tunes from the 80's. This one is what may be considered an "art rock" song from a band that frequently was well known for this genre. It's the English rock band Roxy Music and their song Love Is The Drug.

I've heard of Roxy a long while ago but I didn't really feel like checking out any of their music (and after I found the song, I listened to a few other tunes from them and it's usually not the type of tunes I listen to) but the one tune of theirs that I do like I originally found on... a vinyl album that my parents have. No, they're not art rock listeners. Rather, it was a compilation album of totally random 70's songs (I mean, it had You Sexy Thing, I'm Easy, and a single version of Green Grass & High Tides). I listened to the song, from Roxy's Siren album and thought it was pretty good... the lyrics are well-done and do a great job of explaining how powerful love really is. It IS like a drug, IMO. Funnily, the lyrics also sound like the start of a beautiful... one night stand!

As an aside I'm surprised that this tune is one of the 500 that receive special attention in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The website doesn't explain how the tunes were chosen, so one of these days when I visit the Hall of Fame building in Cleveland I'll have to look at that and I should finally know how the tunes were chosen. I mean, some of them I haven't even heard of before, and others I really don't know why they were included.

Funnily enough I burned the song from a CD that was part of a collection I bought last year. The CD's were advertised as being copyright-protected, but Roxio said "Hardy har har!" to that claim and burned it with no problem.

Roxy Music-Love Is The Drug (5.47 MB, 192Kbits/second)

http://www.zshare.net/audio/3083482c1e06fd/

I'll be back on Monday afternoon (barring any further cable problems) with a new upload. This time it will be a catchy rap song.

Van Freakin' Halen!

This week so far has been interesting. I mean, there is interest brewing concerning how next week will mark the 30th anniversary of Elvis's death. Next week I will commemorate that by posting several lesser known songs of his. Then, last night was Barry Bonds becoming the Home Run King (at least when it comes to baseball in America; in Japan, Sadaharu Oh, who music-wise was name-checked in the Beastie Boys songs "Hey Ladies", set the record in that country's version of major league baseball by hitting 868 home runs. Yeah, their baseball isn't as good as over in America but it's not THAT bad and it's still one hell of an achievement that deserves a lot of credit) by hitting 756.

But, to me the story that relates to this entry is how a story that was reported a month ago was confirmed when it was announced that Van Halen, WITH DAVID LEE ROTH, will embark on a North American tour in the fall. To many that's a shock considering how bitter their split was over 20 years ago and the problems that resulted when a few years ago they tried to have a reunion but it broke apart only days after it was made public.

Along with many people, I prefer the David Lee Roth era of Van Halen (I hope no one thought I'd upload a tune from Van Halen III, i.e. the album with Gary Cerrone; I wouldn't punish you blog readers in that manner!) and plus I will be putting up a lesser-known track from the Roth era and then a solo song from Roth.

First, the song from Van Halen's second album, creatively titled Van Halen II, as it was the second album they ever did. The song is a cover of a tune written by Clint Ballard Jr. (not related to Russ Ballard) that may be best known to your readers for the version done by Linda Ronstadt. Yes, it's You're No Good. The version done by Van Halen has a great bass opening that returns near the end of the tune and nice harmonies in the chorus, which is good enough for me to post on here. I realize that depending on where you live you may hear it once in a blue moon on your local classic rock station (or heck, maybe even one of the satellite radio channels if you have that) but it's certainly not as well-known as their classic rock staples (truth be told, I mostly know their classic rock staples and that's it) so that's why I want to share it with all of you.

Van Halen-You're No Good (3.02 MB, 128Kbits/second)

http://www.zshare.net/audio/304544128a19d2/

The solo song from David Lee Roth is NOT one of the bluegrass tunes he did last year. Holy shit no I would not subject you guys to that either. Just seeing a YouTube video of it is bad enough. After seeing him cover one of their tunes with a bunch of guys picking on a guitar and banjo, I wonder if the Van Halen brothers decided, "Awww fuck, his career must REALLY be in the shitter... we'd better show him some sympathy and let him back into the group." I swear, that must've happened. I mean, his extremely unwise career move of trying to be the next Howard Stern was bad enough, but bluegrassing broke the camel's back.

Anyway, the tune is not from his first EP or his first album*. Now, Yankee Rose is pretty good, I will admit, but as it's in the Vice City game, I'll instead post a song that is from his second album, Skyscraper. It was a song pretty popular at the time but you rarely hear it anymore. Yes, it's Just Like Paradise... no, that's the name of the song, not how I feel about the song. While it's not like a song from his days with Van Halen, it's still very catchy.

* The revelation that a SPANISH version of that album was recorded... it blows my mind. If I ever find that, you know very well that it will be posted on here.

David Lee Roth-Just Like Paradise (3.71 MB, Kbits/second)

http://www.zshare.net/audio/3045474c1040e5/

I'll be back Friday night.

M.Z.A.!

I am not quite sure how I decided to pick this tune, but I only first heard it a few weeks ago. I was looking at a messageboard that I have a love/hate relationship with and in their music section there was a discussion on Japanese music. One band brought up was Loudness. I understood that it was a Japanese version of a heavy metal group, which sounds so strange that I had to try and find a song or two of theirs.

I decided to go with their most famous tunes. The one I like the most is Crazy Nights, a tune that like all on the Thunder In The East album was sung in English. The random chant of "M.Z.A." was used in the song, even though it really means nothing. For you heavy metal fans (and don't deny it, I know you are!) you will have to download this if you don't already have it in your collection. I don't know a lot else about music from the land of the Rising Sun, but at least I know that Loudness is cool.

Loudness-Crazy Nights (4.69 MB, 160Kbits/second)

http://www.zshare.net/audio/3018352e62a788/

I'll be back on Wednesday night.

Bratz... Come Out To PLAY-AY!

While looking through a new layout for my MySpace page, I came across a layout for the 1979 classic film The Warriors. I added it to my page as that film is awesome. Sure, it's cartoony in the fact that, for example, how the gangs dress, but if you don't put that much thought into it, it's an awesome action film with scads of great scenes.

Then, last night I happened to be in a store and saw that the Warriors PS2 game was on sale for 20 bucks so I bought it. I heard that it was a quality game so that's why I made the purchase. I've only started playing it but it does appear to be a sweet-ass disc.

They also have music from the move in the game. For example, the cover of Nowhere To Run. The original is by the famed Holland-Dozier-Holland writing stuff at Motown and sung by Martha Reeves & The Vandellas. The disco-sounding cover of the song that is in the film is from the R&B singer Arnold McCuller. If you've seen the film you'll probably remember the song. I was able to find it with little trouble. However, it's been a bitch trying to download the instrumental that's in the opening credits of the film. When I can get it I'll post it sometime in the future.

Before I post the song, though, I have to mention the epiphany that shot into my brain late last night. I don't know if you've seen the trailer or any ads to the hideous Bratz movie, based off of the line of dolls that are popular with young girls... and possibly pedophiles too! I mean, just look at the Baby Bratz line.

Awhile ago I saw a high quality version of the film's trailer which shows in details just how bizarre their cliques are (one is of "dino-students"; um, what?) but just by seeing the link I provided you can understand that the cliques they have in the film (which plays into the entire plot of the flick, which is that the ladies are pressured to try and join one but in the end they have to "remain real" or whatever and just be themselves) are portrayed rather broadly and stereotypically, to say the least. I mean, what high school as a "disco group" in it?

I probably only realized this due to buying the game, but the cliques in here come off as being EXACTLY like the gangs in The Warriors! I mean, the disco people, the "dino-students", the "sk8ters"... I can imagine the Baseball Furies, The Lizzies, and The Punks (the rollerskaters) also sitting at individual lunch tables in this bizarre high school world. Hell, Bratz has a mime clique (judging by its trailer) and there was also a mime group in The Warriors! If it's just a bizarre coincidence, it's still more than a little freaky to me.

The only way that I'd see Bratz was if it was a remake of The Warriors and the Bratz faction had to fight the "dino-students", the nerds, the jocks, and the band members in order to head back to their home turf. Oh would I ever love to read or even see that vision come to life...

Arnold McCuller-Nowhere To Run (2.98 MB, 128Kbits/second)

http://www.zshare.net/audio/2971497987cefb/

I'll be back sometime on Monday (probably in the evening) where I probably won't make any further connections between films that appear to have nothing in common... and hopefully have no problems with the font in my entries either.