turb: turbia

turbia is filled with laughter and lament.

There's "brained damaged brother": "after one beer, the server/cuts him off/can't have another/dear God, my brain/my brain damaged brother/slurs his words and stutters/be careful drinking/with my brain damaged brother."

There's "slinky": "sometimes we get kinky/when the kids leave the house."

There's also "jello tub rub," "fun with cheap costumes," "General LeMay," "ant bed bombing run," "not the recommended usage," and "scare me."

Welcome to turbia.

blunt: bullets for my birthday

My good friend, Bobby Ray Harrall, was killed last week because he lit up a cigarette at a stop light at an intersection known for trouble. Seems he was playing "Pop, Pop, Damn" way too loud. His killer said what he heard sounded just like gunfire. Indeed, his killer was right.

Bobby Ray didn't really have it coming, but his killer may just walk on a self-defense plea.

A sad end to the larger than large life of Bobby Ray, and a very sad event for blunt, who made bullets for my birthday as a compendium of orchestrated gunfire, ricochet, and random pop pops.

The man who killed Bobby Ray thought he was returning fire. blunt thought they were making music from sound effects.

blunt has long loved games like doom and halo, naming tunes after them, and blunt has long loved the scene(s) in Magnum Force with Clint Eastwood (and David Soul) at the gun range, a scene which inspired the tune "target practice," and blunt has long loved the Men in Black scene where Will Smith shoots the eight year-old with the physics books, a scene which inspired the tune "preemptive strike": "comes the riddler * * * * bang bang."

blunthas apologized to the family of Bobby Ray and issued warnings to their fans on national TV where they promised to name their live-action shoot-from-a-car gun range after Bobby Ray as well as donate a percentage of their proceeds to the care of his children.

Jerry, the brother of Bobby Ray, has already secured a position as driver at the Bobby Ray Gun Park.

And be sure to give "blam blam" a listen if you think your ears can handle it.

severe: flash card music

Have fun with this album: it's severe and offers something counterintuitive entire: flash card music.

flash card music is literally that: music that attempts to be visual. The tracks consist of quote-unquote, arrangements, whereby you the listener-looker arrange flash cards in call-out sequences. Yes, the flash-cards are preprinted and bundled with the album.

But for audio you won't be denied. The call-outs themselves are surprisingly phonic both vocally and instrumentally with brilliant tonal ranges, which serve to give the arrangements color: it's severe.

Oliver & The Otters 'Do Dylan' (1972)

‘Oliver & The Otters were a vast juggernaut, with fascinating harmonies and a villainous yet innocent take on life.’

above: Front Cover

above: Sleeve Cover

From Liner Notes, back cover:

By 1971, the Rodent Invasion of the United States was at its peak. Oliver & The Otters were a vast juggernaut, with fascinating harmonies and a villainous yet innocent take on life. ‘Do Dylan’ was an album intended for release in October 1972, but was pulled at the last moment when the craze of high-pitched homage bands suddenly ended. This album of Bob Dylan songs was recorded in the ‘Do Dylan’ sessions of June-July 1972, and was rescued from a dusty studio vault by a brave and conscientous fan, Lenny Barnacle.

Listen to a snippet of 'All Along the Watchtower'

Side 1
1. Like A Rolling Stone
2. Watching The River Flow
3. Send A Message To Mary
4. In My Time Of Dyin’
5. My Back Pages
6. Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again

Side 2
7. Subterranean Homesick Blues
8. Blowin’ In The Wind
9. Mr Tambourine Man
10. Highway 61 Revisited
11. The Times They Are A-Changin’
12. All Along The Watchtower
13. Don't Think Twice, It’s Alright

All tracks are © Copyright Bob Dylan except
#3 (F. Bryant, B. Bryant) & #4 (Arr.B. Dylan).

above: Back Cover

headache on vacation: aspirin

headache on vacation returns with aspirin, but besides the cover tune, there's also "cancel that credit card," "honey, the kids just ordered room service--again," "fifty percent gratuity," "the rental car company just called," "that was a four star restuarnat?", "everybody up--free buffet!", "ice bucket, ice bucket," "it's raining," and "red tide." You might want to pack the Gas-X and the Pepto-Bismol too especially now that your hotel room smells like coconut suntail oil.

Corsarios Benita Bécquer

Para Benita Bécquer

para su nuevo álbum "Corsarios"

incluye el tema "Pelícanos"
portadas diseñadas

diseñadas por:

Lorena Zúñiga y Diana Magallón

Crik

Crik is the band that brings big sounds from a little town near the Oklahoma-Texas border. In 2002, the band swore off drinking and took up jogging. This change in lifestyle saved the band members not only money, but prison time. In 2003, the band swore off TV, even cable and satellite TV, and decided to take more community college courses, especially creative writing. The Pay-Per-View bill was getting obscene, and this change eliminated it. Their lyrical output, however, quadrupled.

Meanwhile, the Crik fan base was growing bigger than the local bingo hall could hold. Then, in 2004, the band campaigned heavily for the wrong political candidate and lost most of their audience. By 2006, most of the band had graduated from community college, and their diligent high school counselor, Shirlee Rains, had helped them obtain scholarships to state universities. The band broke up unofficially in 2007, but then, this tune hit the radio in July 2009:

Of anything you accomplish
And all you will never be
The creek bleeds aluminum
The mettle of our industry

As of July 2009, everyone from Crik but the drummer had graduated from a four-year college, had a corporate job, and was working on a marriage (for the most part, the second one).

With the local radio stations playing their tunes from 2004, the band quickly put out Crik in August 2009 and began touring local bingo halls in September 2009. Be on the lookout for them.

kandy korn dreams: lurelore

What could be more tourist alluring than a giant ball of twine at an all-you-can-eat nacho buffet, a mission control center emptied of all control personnel but still operational, a grilled cheese sandwich and chocolate shake at a pharmacy that serves experimental prescriptions, and the list goes on and on. Indeed, these little trips are what lurelore is all about. Witness "Edgar Allan Poe's Haunted House with Topless Delight" on the cover. Come in and discover Americana served up David Lynch style in a place where Alfred Hitchcock is lurking.

downtown daze

mention downtown daze, and most critics wil say that it is a band that continues to nurse old wounds to which downtown daze responds with "let it fester" and a series of "curb rhapsodies" including "splish splash revival." Perhaps the most telling piece in the most recent series of tunes from downtown daze is "you can't afford to live here" followed by "where it isn't, go home." My current favorite is "truth newsreel, a la John Dos Passos."

Fashionetts: Once Upon a Time in Paris

Fashionetts are back with their new album devoted to Paris.
They bring us 10 new tracks in their unique sound and style so hurry and check it out!
You'll know why music and fashion world were anxious to hear this one...

Once Upon a Time in Paris brings:

1. Oh la la!
2. Christian D.
3. Miss Cinèma
4. He Was Watching Me
5. Deux Blondes
6. At the Jazz Club
7. Rouge
8. By the River
9. Mr. Eiffel
10. Devenir gris

suburban metaphysical: nature department

suburban metaphysical is all about you and your chemical lawn, and the chemical dawn, and the parasol you can buy when the ozone is low, and how to protect your garden hose. Here's a slice of "wonderland":

when I pulled into the drive
the kids were on the lawn
looking for bugs, and I don't mean
the electronic kind
it wasn't the usual catch and kill
it was all film

I heard, "the Lady Bug shall be Alice,
and the anthill her palace"
...

And for Tom T. Hall fans, there's a re-mix of "Old Dogs, Children, and Watermelon Wine."

You're only just a garden hoe away from nature department so break out your wheelbarrow, root up your lawn, and start looking for the critters that are still alive.

mayhem sounds

On October 15, 2009, Randy "Razor Lick" Randall accidentally killed himself while experimenting with fireworks in his garage. mayhem sounds was to have titled this album phosporesce, but changed the album title just before today's release to razor lick, a tribute.


mayhem sounds fans are doubtful that the band can go on without Randy "Razor Lick" Randall. Indeed, critics have already compared his guitar play and stage energy to that of Randy Rhoads, and that kind of energy is difficult to find.

Nevertheless, every track on this album is slated to make number one on the charts:

1) last light
2) phosphoresce
3) the first broken window
4) don't fall down
5) flare run and gun
6) sweat out
7) hostage taker
8) the reaper of screams
9) nervous check
10) overrun
11) capsize
12) out of luck
13) shadowmancer
14) love in vain

Check out these eerie lyrics from "flare run and gun":

when I met you last you were young
you wanted children
but I wanted to run and gun

it's cold as the faraway stars fade
now, my flare gun won't shot straight
and I'm alone, and I need a home

and you have a warm place

Or check out this part of "last light":

no one can hang out at bars anymore
the drinks are too expensive
and the insurance costs immensely

before there's a last light

As my good friend Grant Hiram used to say, "Killer!" It's a killer album, too bad it's also a grand finale for a tremendous talent like Randy "Razor Lick" Randall.

Randy "Razor Lick" Randall was buried in Mesquite, Texas October 21, 2009. Services were held at First Baptist Church, Mesquite, Texas.

philandering at the office: by the short heirs

Originally, this album cover confused philandering at the office fans for the usual superchared vixen, scantily clad and situated in an almost pornographic pose (leaning over a desk ... ), does not adorn it. This change in cover, however, does not mean that the band found religion--after all, the lyrics on this album are hardly feminist.

Fans have rightly assumed this change has something to do with the recent divorce of lead singer Luken Peeple from his supermodel wife Bea Lustig. Indeed this seems so, since Bea posed for the first five album covers.

Another noteworthy fact: The use of the word "bitch" is down from last year's superbitch album count of fifteen instances per minute to one instance per minute in by the short heirs. Fans have rightly assumed this change has something to do with the recent divorce of lead singer Luken Peeple from his supermodel wife Bea Lustig.

As for the cover, an almost native American cluster of feathers and strings bursts free of a bright orange silhouette.

Not sure what this orangified energy signfies, but those strings are not hairs (nor heirs, as the pun would have it), but the glorious symbolic detail of the totem of recompilation abstraction. "Huh?" you ask. Bea Lustig was also on the sixth album cover for philandering at the office, but due to a divorce-related lawsuit, her sixth cover did not happen: lawsuit=recompilation.

The current cover belongs with the tune "she-eagle," but as the cover tune "by the short heirs" goes, "she gave you short heirs, and she has you by your short heirs, and she gave you gray hair, and she has you by the short hairs." In other words, Luken Peeple pays Bea Lustig $50,000 a month to visit his children for five days a month.

Totally confused? Here are the lyrics to "she-eagle": "she plays all the old men, she cajoles and threatens and lets her eagle fly, she plays the old women, she cajoles and threatens and lets her eagle lie, but why? she's no good for the tribe."

philandering at the office has moved through their careless twenties and all the sex, drugs, and rock and roll they could handle to their early thirties with full-on social theory in the making. Sad to say, but philosophy is so often the death of rock and roll.

my electric guitar pose

Supposedly, my electric guitar pose originally performed as an air band, garnering third place in a well known national contest, before they became the band they are today.

And what can of band would that be? Indeed, the tunes on this debut album reflect a well honed poseur history:

1) behind my back
2) Jimi Hendrix style
3) The Who did this
4) Jimi Hendrix style with lighter fluid
5) Eric Clapton fast
6) Muddy Waters
7) name somebody
8) devil soul
9) guitar contest
10) thick chord
11) Stevie Ray Vaughn
12) wooden
13) angels play mandolins
14) getting Spanish
15) Trixie (Speed Racer riff)

But what does this band sound like? Blues and hard rock mainly.

nefertiti: gravitas

Welcome to the musical playground of the royal family of rarified elegance.

Before I even heard of nefertiti (the band), I heard the tune "pyramids": "Are you ready to be buried with your king? Dress up nice for death. We must be going." The lilting of the music was like a paper cut from a sheet of thin glass made from hot sand blowing fast across across my exposed eardrums.

When I first asked the name of the band after hearing this tune, of course, the comment I heard in the dorm was, "Only constipated headholes listen to flute." But there's much more than flute to nefertiti, and personally, I think more than wine sipper-cheese eaters might adore this album.

Indeed, gravitas has its monastery music (mostly Latin chants) and a smattering of ancient instrumentals including a thrilling tune called "thrombosis" that features shofar.

island breeze

island breeze is an album that's not really about anything more than suntan oil, peeing in public, ice cold beer, and sharing a hammock with the most beautiful girl in the world.

The Wizard of CH, Alien Encounter

Replete with night noises, eerie sounds, a true photo section, this album contains a classic alien-encounter interview. The cover of this album itself is proof that alien life does, indeed, exist, and the album contains interview after interview with a list of locals who experienced the alien firsthand. We'll be happy to send you copies of signed certificates attesting to the fact that the object pictured on the album cover is alien.

The chief and eponymous interview, however, is the one with the Wizard of CH. You'll be convinced of all things alien by the time you are done with his explanation. Be sure to start with the Power Point file in the the true photo folder so that you can understand the photo and the science behind its explanation.

I cannot tell you how happy we are to have an interview with the Wizard of CH recorded for posterity. Not that the interviews with the locals, especially the one with Reverend Billy, are not special because they are special, but because the Wizard of CH is so highly respected by alien enthusiasts like you.

In order to interview the Wizard of CH, Harold Reginald had to agree to be called "Obsequious Neophyte."

...

Here are just a few of the questions Obsequious Neophyte asks the Wizard of CH:

Question: Are you using your time warping powers to facilitate these things?

Answer: I wish that were true. I'm fairly old fashioned still using my lucky dousing rods to rule the world.

Question: Do you have lightning scars on your wrists? I hear demonfire elctro-plasmatic blowback can be miserable. Did you know that certain wizards advocate using wrists supports like bowlers use? Now, is that cheating?

...

You may be asking yourself, "What about the interview that demonstrates the photo on the cover is proof of alien life?" Well, if you're curious, buy the album.

There are over one hunderd-sixty alien life photos, over two hunderd picutres of interviewees, and seventy-five photos thrown in gratis.

gypsy girls: that look

Fresh from a stay at a combination summer spa and recording studio in an undisclosed location, but presumably located in the south of France, gypsy girls are back with that look.

You may be saying to yourself, "But didn't gypsy girls release an album with that title last year or the year before?" The answer would be "yes."

Here's the tune that went straight to number three on the pop charts, "we share a mask": "we're like a team, not really like twins/and we like to play tag/we share a mask/just don't ask."

sol selegna: deeps

sol selegna is on a tour of the country, but he only drives between 3:30 AM and daybreak.

This album depicts his pre dawn encounters (as well as some of the encounters his band and his entourage [i.e., his groupies]) have had with asphalt, concrete, cyclone fence, orange plastic fence, curbs, guardrails, handrails, retaining walls, medians, and other architecture in the amusement park that is our collective driving experience.

Here are the lyrics from "curb feelers": "Almost had my morning Happy Meal/Got there just as McDonald's opened,/But the tour bus scraped the awning/And crashed the store down./Sometimes you need curb feelers where you least expect them."

dirty spam: couples talk

couples talk

dirty spam reintroduces hard to understand lyrics to standard rock: yes, this band has a lead singer, a guitarist, a bass player, and a drummer. Susan Atch, sometime back-up singer and lyricist for dirty spam, is schooled in a theory of social linguistics that says something along these lines: ater a lot of nonsense about the meaningfulness of language, what's more important than the conveyance of meaning through words is understanding language as part of a raw animal interaction. So, here's the playlist for couples talk:


1) what if we weren't really saying anything anyway (just mumble, I'll nod)
2) mouth to mouth (huh, what, o)
3) make it bigger (show me your naked pictures)
4) vigoro and viagra (jolly green giant thumb)
5) it's all repetition and nonsense (let's do it again)
6) whisper in my deaf ear
7) don't get on the phone while we're making love
8) get on the phone and tell your friends what we're doing
9) o my my my my
10) raw animal interaction (bark, howl, bite)

Charmin' Jazz Trio: Texas Toilet Museum

Texas Toilet Museum by Charmin' Jazz Trio

Formed in 2007 as part of a unique marketing campaign for
bathroom tissue, Charmin' Jazz Trio has performed at numerous
odd locations across the country, such as the Plumbing Museum
in Watertown, Mass. They are often accompanied by famous guest
performers (a benefit of being funded by a large corporation).

While the title may seem to indicate that Texas Toilet Museum is a
live performance, it is in fact the trio's first studio album. The
album was recorded prior to a live performance in the parking lot
of the famous Texas tourist attraction, where the group performed
unaccompanied.

However, the studio album features a strange assortment of guest
performers, including an accordian solo by "Weird Al" Yankovic and
a strange duet of Polka Dots and Moonbeams from Michael Buble and
Norah Jones.

In spite of the advertising gimmickry, the result is a unique and
delightful jazz album. As a bonus, the CD includes a coupon for a
free four pack of toilet paper.

behind the red door: come play with us

Come Play with Us by Behind the Red Door

Behind the Red Door is an Athens, Georgia alternative rock band
formed in 2004 by twin brothers Jacob and Jared Marx. The band
took their name from the 2003 movie starring Kiefer Sutherland and
Kyra Sedgwick about a man dying of AIDS.

"Our music is very dark and we deal with issues of death, violence
and injustice quite a bit," said Jared Marx in a recent interview.
"Our drummer Stacy (Roper) was diagnosed with HIV shortly after he
joined the band and that was why we wanted to name the band after
that particular movie. There's some meaning there that is too
painful to go into."

Come Play with Us is the band's third studio album and it has met
with some positive reviews, especially in the Athens music scene.
The video for the first single "Death Panels for Sarah Palin" went
viral on YouTube last month.

"That is Jared and me on the album cover," said Jacob during the
same interview. "We were about six years old. The hallway and red
door have been added in. But that's how we looked back then. Don't
ask us to tell you which one is which. Even we can't tell."

Tissue. Benita Bécquer

"Tissue"

Benita Bécquer

tense: verb-it

a frog in the pond
singing its lucky
seems to announce
the weather wet
and the sunny same
where drops dance
the birth swim
a frog in the pond
singing its lucky
blue green green