Yesterday’s post spawned a discussion about actors who tried to make of a go of it in the music business. It was noted that Chuck Norris actually sang the theme to Walker, Texas Ranger, and I know I used to have the Paradise Alley Soundtrack, which featured an impossibly awful Sly Stallone on vocals, but I have to say that I drew a major blank on the topic and didn’t make much of a contribution.

When I got home, I started compiling a small list to post, and whole bunch googling later it’s three fucking AM. The list has grown from Gadzuki to Godzilla, and I’m dangerously close to comatose. As you peruse, if you find that you can’t remember where an actor might be from, mouse over their album to get a tool tip containing at least one show that they were in. If you find that you need even more info, most of the albums link to Amazon.

If you see me being walked out of the building tomorrow for sleeping at my desk, at least you’ll have this MegaList to remember me by. And to the poor bastard who might have to take over my job: again, I say, sorry I’m such a spaz.

Enjoy.

(If you think of any more than this, add them into the comments.)

Ten days or so ago, QGM asked, “What are the top three musicians you would most want to be your next door neighbor?”

Now, my first spasm of thought was “Slayer!SlayerSlayer,” but after a couple of minutes, I wasn’t so sure. John Garcia of Kyuss? Angus Young of AC/DC? The ‘Nuge? I mean I might like kicking back with a little Cat Scratch Fever every now and again, but would I really want the friggin ‘Nuge anywhere near the apartment next door to me in any permanent or semi-permanent basis? Very doubtful. I want neighbors who don’t make noise and stay so far out of my business that the casual observer would assume that they owe me money. What I don’t want are neighbors who bust through the walls of my apartment drunk at 3 AM unleashing rivers of vomit underneath my door.

The meme called for 3, but I wisely overpicked in case some of my choices were locked into their leases…

Samantha Fox, Kylie Minogue, Lindsay Lohan, Beyonce Knoweles, or Lynda Carter: I couldn’t find a good reason not to include them.

The Donnas: 200 pillows. 4 hot rock chicks. 1 apartment. Me next door with a power drill and tiny robot cams. DonnaDorm.com is born. High Five.

Leonard Nemoy: I would pretend that I had never seen Star Trek and cheerily greet him with “NaNoo Nanoo, Mr. Nimoy!” every time I saw him walking his dog. I would also try to borrow any of his copies of “In Search of…”

Eddie Murphy: “I’d play “My Girl Wants to Party All the Time” all the time at full volume until he called the cops on me. Then, I’d just stash some transvestite hookers outside his door. When the cops asked what was going on, I’d just roll my eyes and make that hand sign that insinuated that Eddie had been hitting the bottle pretty hard and blasting the music himself. This would happen every week until he apologized for making that fucking song or gave me a “Mumford Phys Ed” T-shirt. Either or.

William Shatner: You fucking wish you thought of that one. Oh yea. And I’d do up my apartment like that weirdo in England so it looks like the inside of the Enterprise. Then, I’d just kick back and let him record another craptacular album where he feels most at home: on the bridge in the middle my living room.

James Brown: Every morning when I heard James Brown yelling at his wife, I would invite him over and make him omelettes and bacon to calm him down (maybe even pancakes if the situation warrants it). I would also invite my friends over and not tell them James Brown came over every morning to eat breakfast at my apartment. Then, when James knocked on the door, I’d tell my friends, “Now, that’s probably an angry James Brown at the door, so just shut the fuck up because James don’t take no mess.” And they’d laugh, but the joke would be on them, because it really would be James Brown. I’d have my camera ready. Good times. Gooood times.

Gene Simmons: Given his uncanny ability to elevate a crappy rock band into a legendary marketing machine, I’m almost positive that if Gene Simmons lived next door, I could get my Jon action figure line off the ground.

Chuck Norris: I know he didn’t sing, so he won’t live next door. But, if he did, it would be the last song you would ever hear.

Jerry Reed: Jerry Reed. Smokey and the Bandit Trucker guy. East Bound and Down, loaded up and truckin’. Yeaaa, him. I would buy a CB rig and CB that fucker all day until he couldn’t take it anymore. I would then apologize and invite him over to have an omelette with James Brown.

Weird Al: Not only would I live next to Weird Al, but I’d build a custom wrestling ring in the courtyard of the complex the minute I heard he was moving in. After winning his trust, I’d convince him to enter into a steel cage match against Carrot Top for charity. I would then make them fight to the death. If they refused, I’d simply electrify the cage and wait for Tina Turner to show up. Two men enter, and hopefully no man leave.

Mr. T.: He sang “T’s Commandment”, so he counts as much as Samantha Fox or Eddie Murphy does. He’ll move in, introduce himself, I’ll cut the sleeves off of a denim jacket, and he’ll give me a proper haircut. Then, we’ll grab something to eat, and do whatever the fuck Mr. T wants to do. This will definitely involve pitying fools, and probably involve going to the mall to get “best friend” t-shirts made. Maybe hats. I’m not sure. Ebony and ivory, baby.

The Catastrophic Loss

When I first ripped CDs to MP3 a few years back, I had to pick and choose which tracks to rip, and rip them to radio quality 96kbps MP3’s because my state-of-the-art Pentium II-300 only had 2 4Gb SCSI drives in it. Those drives were a steal at $150 each…

A couple of years later, falling hard drive prices allowed me to lay my hands on a nice, fat 120Gb drive, which gave me the space to start ripping full discs at 192 kbps (Constant Bit rate) without having to pick and choose individual tracks. Eliminating my indecisive nature from the process might’ve shortened the process, but it did nothing to speed up things for my 2 semi-outdated PCs, which took about fifteen to twenty minutes to rip each CD. Even running 4 drives at once left me in front of a couple of PCs for a solid couple months, popping discs in and out. And in. And out…

Finally, last year, the 80+Gb of MP3’s that I had spent so much time ripping were lost in what I can only describe as a catastrophic drive failure. I can only describe it that way, because I’m a melodramatic nerd who relates better to PC’s than people. I had no backups because I had been procrastinating on buying a second drive, because my friend the PC had assured me that friends do not crash on each other. To make a long story short, the whole thing ended with me crouched over the PC’s innards yelling, “Don’t you die on me, you bastard. Don’t you DIE ON ME!”

The Road to Recovery

After building a replacement PC with nearly a half terrabyte of storage and 2.21 Gigawatts of power (2.21 GIGAWATTS! 2.21 GIGAWATTS!), I’ve finally found the initiative to investigate the various audio formats, methods, and options relating to the re-digitizing my collection.

Compressed or Lossless?

I really wanted to rip the files to a lossless audio format like FLAC for the better quality, but I couldn’t justify spending 400MB of disk space per CD when human ears generally can’t distinguish them from 192kbps files that take up one-tenth of the space. So, FLAC was out.

After reading a bunch of audio forum posts (that I can’t even begin to provide a paper trail for) with opinions ranging from “Fuck it, all codecs are the same” to “only reading the 0’s and 1’s directly from the CD with a microscope and imagining the music will provide the acceptable tonal warmth“, I decided that I’d stick with encoding the files in MP3. From what I can tell, at higher bitrates all the formats become very similar, and although MP3 is not the best codec out there, it’s still the heavyweight champ when it comes to compatibility. I also decided that I would use LAME’s V1 preset, which produces variable bit rate files in the 200-250 kbps/s range. This was a little higher quality than my original 192kbps files, but the variable bitrate keeps the file sizes about the same as the old files. Higher quality for the same size is a win-win. With headphones, these are supposedly indistinguishable from CD, and I spent 10 or 15 minutes making sure that I couldn’t hear a difference.

Testing For Speed And Accuracy

To encode the files, there was no real reason to move away from
CDex, which has been my little encoding bitch for the last 6+ years, but I wanted to try something new. I found a program called Exact Audio Copy (EAC), and gave it a shot because of its $0 price tag and reported ability to make error-free copies of CDs. After a little reading, I found that it also has a few features to help speed up the encoding process: It can queue the encoding of the files (allowing a second CD to be started while the first is still encoding in the background), it allows the user to set the number of encoding threads to spawn, and if that’s not enough, two instances of the program can be opened to rip 2 drives simultaneously.

Given the number of CDs that I’m going to have to rip and encode, I spent a little time testing which configuration would minimize the time I have to spend popping in CDs and staring at the wall. I compared ripping 2 drives simultaneously versus ripping with a single drive, and found that even though ripping 2 CDs simultaneously was about 45 seconds faster than ripping 2 CDs in one drive, the resultant files have a lot more errors than those ripped from a single drive. I also found that using any other programs in the background was possible, but produced timing errors in the resulting files. 45 seconds will definitely add more time over ripping my CDs, but the extra time involved in using the single drive is worth it to me if it cuts the number of errors that will drive me crazy later.

The Results: Exact Audio Copy

I played around with the number of threads to use, and found that two test CDs took 5:21 to rip using one thread, 4:42 with two threads, and 4:38 with four. Because the LAME encoder will eat 100% of the processing power of the box, the threads just end up dividing the processing power among themselves, making me think that the drop in encoding times may be just savings from the time that it takes EAC to close and re-open an instance of LAME. As long as I’m not using a single thread, I really don’t think it matters if I use two or four.

So, anyway. I’m going to be using EAC with the settings recommended in the EAC Tutorial and LAME 3.97 beta to encode my MP3’s from a single drive using the LAME V1 preset as recommended by Hydrogenaudio’s recommended LAME settings.

It only took me three hours and the jazz section is pretty much done. And I’m seriously happy with the speed at which the new machine is encoding. I have Microsoft’s SyncToy running to backup the MP3 files between 2 drives. The only weird thing about the whole process is that when I open some of the CDs, I can smell the cleaning solution that I used when I salvaged them from my house fire a number of years ago (I did my own salvage). Smells primitively link right up to memories in our brains, and that smell links up to a pretty lonely and miserable time for me. Then, I feel weird. Then, I feel weird about feeling weird about it.

Anywho. Hope you found something useful in there. Sorry I’m such a spaz.

Most modern music database software contains a way to lookup album cover art from sites like Amazon.com automatically. I used to display these covers full screen while my music was playing so I could see them from across the room. Unfortunately, most of the downloaded scans were not of great quality and ended up pixelated on my screen.

And this would never do.

To resolve the issue, I had written a simple Perl script to comb Walmart.com for covers because they tended to get me better scans than Amazon. For giggles, I have been meaning to rewrite the script to pull album covers from multiple sources for comparison purposes, but that has yet to materialize.

So, until I get around to upgrading it, my crappy, first draft code is up on the site for anyone to use. The code ain’t pretty, it’s probably somewhat buggy, but it should pull nice, 500×500 pixel covers for most albums.

Let me know how it goes…

WalMart Album Cover Grabber v. 0.2

Because she makes me believe that I’m more than I see in the mirror every morning, I wish I had put together something better for #1GF! this Valentine’s Day. All I could come up with this year were kiddie gifts: a load of flowers, home-made burritos, and a mix CD. I should also be noted that I was working on the CD until well after #1GF! got home. I’m lucky that she has low expectations because I was 4th and inches on a macaroni heart card or seeing if the local pizza shop would arrange the pepperoni on a pizza in the shape of a heart.

Ladies, thank your stars that I’m taken…

#1GF! Valentine’s Day Mix 2006

1. Unknown - The Love Boat Theme
2. Bobby Darin - Dream Lover
3. The Flamingos - I Only Have Eyes for You
4. The Platters - Only You (and You Alone)
5. Barry White - Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love, Babe
6. Ella Fitzgerald - Love Is Here To Stay
7. Prince - I Wanna Be Your Lover
8. Jack Johnson - Cupid
9. Ray Charles - Night Time Is The Right Time
10. Billy Joel - Just The Way You Are
11. Stevie Wonder - Isn’t She Lovely
12. The O’Jays - Love Train
13. Wilson Pickett - I Found A True Love
14. Clyde McPhatter - A Lover’s Question
15. Blacktop - Tornado Love
16. The Cure - Lovesong (Extended Mix)
17. KC And The Sunshine Band - Keep It Comin’ Love
18. The Beatles - Love Me Do
19. Jackson 5 - The Love You Save
20. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Our House
21. The Ohio Players - Love Rollercoaster
22. Aretha Franklin - Baby I Love You
23. Louis Prima/Keely Smith - Embraceable You/I Got It Bad And That Ain’t Good (Medley)
24. Frank Sinatra - You Brought A New Kind Of Love To Me

Morningwood - Self titled (rock): I discovered Morningwood while looking for new bands online, and put it on my possible buy list. During my most recent CD buys, I was more than a little disappointed to find my “discovery” on the top 25 rack at a local store, downgrading it from “possible” buy to “improbable”. While looking for the other CDs on my list, I somehow got within earshot of one of the local hipsters gushing as if Morningwood were the best band since sliced bread. Maybe it’s the way hipsters ac-cen-tu-ate ev-ery syl-la-ble, or the way they are soooooo into everything, but by the time I could get myself out of earshot, I wanted nothing more than to choke someone with a studded belt and set the bin on fire.

Even though I felt like I was validating hipsters everywhere, I somehow ended up with the album in my hands right before I hit the register. And trust me in that I felt more than a little dirty handing over that ten spot for it. The only small way that I felt could wash off some of the shame was to avoid listening to the album until after I got home…which seemed to work for me.

Misfits - Walk Among Us (hardcore): When I was 16, I played this album to the point where all of the writing was worn off the tape. Even though I have the Misfits box set, and have owned a few of the greatest hits albums since, there’s just something about listening to the original tracks in the original order that made this worth paying for a second time. To me, it’s just a classic album where every song reminds me of what it’s like to be a 16 year old riding the red line every day and how much better life can get. It also reminds me of a time when I was oblivious to what a tool Glenn Danzig was. A

Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Airplane Over the Sea (experimental folk): My sister gave me a copy of this and I liked it so much that I went out and bought it. Traditionally, I haven’t been a fan of music that borders on sloppy and certainly won’t tow the indie crowd line of sloppy equals good, but there is something important about this album. There’s something about it that completely overrides my aversion. It sort of tears the covers off of the world and presents something that I’m not entirely comfortable with. I feel strange when I listen to it like I’m being forced to face the truth after wrapping myself in an elaborate lie. I know it sounds very melodramatic, but I actually have to put this album away for periods to normalize my view on things. A

Neutral Milk Hotel - On Avery Island (experimental): This was Neutral Milk Hotel’s first album, and I don’t think it’s as good as the In the Airplane over the Sea, but it still hits a place that makes me feel like everything’s bullshit, and yet it’s all ok. B+

Boris - Akuma No Uta (experimental metal): I consistently refer to this album as Hakuna Matata. Anyway. You know that part in Led Zeppelin’s The Song Remains the Same where Jimmy Page whips out a bow and the theramin squeals? And for like 10 minutes, you’re thinking “I have no idea what Jimmy is doing, but it’s fucking awesome!” Now, imagine Jimmy is in Motorhead, and Motorhead is Japanese. You now are imagining Boris. This album is six songs long, and I love it. The middle four are Japanese fuzz rock (in Japanese), bounded on either side by heavy, droning, experimental instrumentals. The 10 minute introduction to this album is the coolest thing that I’ve heard since 5ive’s “Stockholm (Blues)” on their Telestic Disfracture disc. B+

Sleater-Kinney - The Woods (rock): I have never understood what the big deal is with Sleater-Kinney, but I had heard a couple of songs from this album that I thought were pretty neat, so I bought it on impulse for $9.99 in the middle of a Friday record buying binge. After hearing the all-female indie rock trio, I still can’t say that I see what the big deal is, but I’ve never heard anything like it. It’s almost Pixies-like in the way the songs have more artistic value than structure, but there is enough of a catchy string running through them to get my head nodding. This is solidly in the artsy indie realm, but not as unstructured as sonic youth. Is it important? I don’t know. Is it an album that is outside my normal habits? I think so. It has the potential to fall by the wayside in my collection, or be one of those albums that I latch on to and run into the ground from time to time. B- (Rollercoaster has cowbell)

Queens of the Stoneage - Lullabies to Paralyze (rock): When John Garcia split Kyuss into QOTSA, QOTSA ended up being the more watered down pop half of the split. Even though I think that their first release was phenomenal, it was still watered down Kyuss. When Nick Olivieri left QOTSA after Songs for the Deaf, I think that the band got watered down yet again. Lullabies to Paralyze can be catchy and driving at times, but it’s missing the edge of the previous incarnations of the group. This is specifically the reason that I held off on buying this album for so long. Honestly, I find myself putting up with more than enjoying, and skipping almost as much as listening. If it weren’t for the quality of the 3-4 songs that I like, I’d give this one a fat D. Fortunately, the few that are good are really good, so it gets a one grade bump. C

Seemless - Self-titled (rock): Man, after 2 weeks of listening to this album, I’m still not sure what I think about it. When it’s good, it’s straight Roadsaw style Massachusetts cock rock. When it’s bad, it sounds like the best shiny shirt band to play the second rate clubs in the suburbs. It’s not bad, but it walks the line between the two enough to give me trouble committing to it. C+

The Haunted - Self-titled (Fuckin metal): Ever since I picked up the Haunted’s One Kill Wonder, I’ve been on a tear to pick up their other releases. Although this is the Haunted’s first album, and I can’t say that I like it any less than OKW. And I love OKW. The Haunted easily rivals Slayer on the top of my metal charts, and those who know me know how much I love Slayer. It’s a HUGE nod to the Haunted’s power, aggression, and talent. Huge. A.

The Haunted - The Haunted Made me Do It (fuckin’ metal): This was the Haunted’s second album, and by purchasing it, I now own all four of the Haunted’s studio albums. For a band to crank out three solid albums is very rare (seriously, think about it), and this album was one of four that the Haunted have put out. Although extremely unlikely due to my lackadaisical attitude, if I ever did commit some sort of heinous crime, I would certainly claim that the haunted made me do it. And I really wouldn’t be joking. This shit will scare the panties off of your average metal fan. A

Bleeding Through - The Truth (metal?): I originally heard Bleeding Through on the web, so when I came across the album in the store I expected a hardcore album. And for the first minute or so I got it. Then, all of a sudden there was this Foo Fighter’s style singing going on. And then after a minute thirty, I’m listening to fucking synthesizers. The only metal that should be allowed to include synthesizers was made in the 80’s. In the 80’s some dude brought his synthesizer up on stage, and someone got it in their head that if metal was the chocolate, the synthesizer was the peanut butter. Two great tastes that taste great together, right? Back then, I couldn’t really blame them because they were probably so coked up. But now, when it comes to synthesizers, I’ve developed a major fucking nut allergy. Maybe that’s biased, but there is nothing that makes your band sound like big fat pussies than the synthesizer player. Fuck him. And his cape. In all seriousness, I got tired of trying to find something good in this album. The lyrics are retarded, the cover is stupid, and the music has no idea if it’s hard core, Foo Fighters pop, or Cure-like synthpop. And I don’t either. And I can’t say that I really care. D-

Although I really think that copyright is out of control and the RIAA can just suck it, I can’t say that I believe in downloading a band’s music if they don’t want me to. Music takes work and if the band wants to keep their music to themselves, I think that’s their prerogative. On the other hand, I’m a huge fan of free, and a little giving goes a long way with me.

That said, I’ve been delving into various sites where I can expose myself to some new stuff without feeling like I’m ripping someone off. Some of the cooler record labels offer MP3s that can be legally downloaded to aid in the search for new music with some going so far as to encourage podcasting and making copies for your friends.

There are a zillion and a half bands out there that offer free music to anyone who wants to download it, and a lot of them are just as good as the big name bands. The problem for the small band is attracting the audience’s ears. It’s a hell of a lot easier for consumers to fall in love with even a shitty artist if they’re getting played 3 times an hour on the top 40 channels than it is for someone to get their band noticed at crap.com/homesite/ ~larrywalters/ WarHammer-of -Doom/ newmusic/ mysong.mp3

Instead of trying to control the flow of music with lawsuits, the digital model should focus on finding and categorizing all of the bands that are out there. And allow people to buy all those albums in one spot with one credit card. Listen, listen, click, click, go put your pants on. Not shit quality digital files at a buck a song. The CD. Delivered. Overnight if I want it. With free shipping.

And once someone can put that together, the great equalizing force of the web that we have seen in the publishing arena could be seen in the music industry. And that’s why the majors want to control it so badly.

Anyhow… Because that magical musical thing hasn’t quite been invented, yet, the following is just a compilation of the three or four handwritten notes that my last week of music searching is written on, so I can figure out what is actually worth tracking down and buying.

WebJay Playlists I’m wading through…

HardCore
Ashes of the Wake
Metal & Hardcore
Grace of My Autumn Fall
Genetic Material
Punk & Ska

Bands that I found on Webjay that I need to investigate further…

Ramallah
Death Before Dishonor
Figure Four
Too Pure to Die
As I Lay Dying
Metric
Silversun Pickups
Chimaira
Bleeding Through
Unearth
Killing the Dream
Allegiance

Labels with free music…

RoadRunner
Bridge9
Metal Blade
Traktor7
SubPop

MySpace bands I need to check out further…

Morningwood
FirstBlood
Broken Social Scene
Yacht - Mega
Dear Whoever
Powerglove - Metal + video games
Seemless
Crash and Burn
He is Legend I am Hollywood
Trustkill

From the Auto Playlist Generator…

Songs I can bump in my car that will make everyone turn their heads and say, “man, that guy is a douche.”

A small sample of the shit I’ve been eating for admitting to buying a Kelly Clarkson CD:

“first even jenny says your gay for the kelly clarkson.”

“I don’t know man. I always looked at you like the guy in High Fidelity, tons of music knowledge with an uncanny ability to find music with cowbells. Now that is all tainted with the thought of you cruising in the EVO with Kelly Clarkson all cranked up to 11 dancing and tapping the steering wheel.”

“I was looking at your music reviews and said, ‘don’t know it… Don’t know it… KELLY CLARKSON?!?! I had to come right over. I don’t think I can look at you the same.’”

“You don’t like Kelly Clarkson. You like ‘KILL YOUR MAMA! KILL YOUR MAMA!’”

Of course, they were all kidding…

There’s no way that I’ll sit here and defend Kelly Clarkson as the pinnacle of musical perfection, and I expected a certain level of grief for admitting to making the purchase. I suppose that I should be grateful that these people once had a vision of me being cooler than I actually am, but I’m not going to lie just maintain that image. That’s not why you’re here. You’re not here to see me cool. You’re here because you know that “the only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.”*

Me and you are tight. We’re like this. And I can’t lie to you, now can I? Not a chance.

When it comes to music, though, the world is full of liars. You know all those people with the bad haircuts who only listen to the most ultra-exclusive, undiscovered bands out, and once the bands get more than 90 fans, they drop them cold? Yes, you do. They wear those little tiny glasses, carry messenger bags, and are always talking about how they liked the band’s early stuff before they got so commercial. If engaged in a conversation for more than five minutes without getting punched in the face, they’ll inevitably tell you what you should be listening to.

They may claim to be heavier than thou, or more obscure than thou, or more underground than thou, but you can always count on them claiming (even if silently) to be cooler than thou. For them, music isn’t about notes and chords. It’s not about kicking back and letting your brain blindly decide what moves it.

It’s a disaffected outlook, a bad haircut, wearing all the right clothes, dropping all the right band names, and living in hip, shitty little apartments in the city. It’s acting like they don’t give a shit what people think about their musical taste, when they actually care the most about what people think.

To them, music is a race to get there first, and a junk bond in which to store their credibility.

It’s a sad fact that most of the cool people I’ve met in my life have turned out to be pretty uncool. Or fake. Or assholes. Or all three. And most of the time, the cool is just a perfume to mask the stink of whatever is rotting inside them. But the deeper you have to dig through all the layers of cool, the more likely you are to find people that grew up in some hick town on the same uncool shit that we all grew up on. They my be listening to Boris now, but when no one’s looking they’re listening to stuff that is completely uncool. And if they’re not, they’re completely wasting their time:

Because when you’re alone, there shouldn’t be anyone left to impress. Music isn’t about cool. It’s not about right or wrong. It’s about feeding your brain what it needs to get by.

So, I can’t understand the Musical Vegans, who consume a very limited subset of music while rejecting all others. For me to get what I need, I need to be a musically omnivorous. There is just too much music in the world to worry about what’s cool or to pigeonhole myself into some narrow slice of the musical spectrum.

In my collection, Richard Buckner sits with Bullet LaVolta, Burn the Priest and Junior Brown. Clutch is next to Clarkson, HateBreed next to Ben Harper, and Only Living Witness next to the Old 97’s. Pig Destroyer touches the Pixies, Shadows Fall touches the Shins, and Killswitch Engage touches Kraftwerk. Even Lords of Acid is allowed to get its unique brand of nasty all over Lamb of God.

So remember, I’ve never claimed to be cool. It rewards me far less than being musically omnivorous.

*Lester Bangs, Almost Famous

So, I was reading a post over at Enjoy & Exciting where Keidra was soliciting ideas for a mix CD of her own. She wanted to create a mix CD of songs with “Boy” in the title that were sung by men or all male groups. I dumped off the tracks that I could think of (and was a little off the mark on a couple of them) as did some of her other readers.

Then I got to thinking…

Knowing what a pain in the ass the whole hunt and peck process of compiling the cowbell CD’s was, I didn’t want Keidra to have to spend an inordinate amount of time googling through forums doing title searches. Cowbell and other instruments aren’t really query friendly, but CD track title information is out there and available to all.

When you pop your CD into your media player of choice, it either queries Gracenote or FreeDB to get the track and title information. The majority of the information between the two is going to be identical. The major differences between these two sources are derived from one being proprietary, and one being open source.

Gracenote was the original CDDB on the web but it was transformed into Gracenote a number of years ago. The information output is cleaner than FreeDB (artist, album, and track are listed without having to click each one), but the database is not open source and can’t be manipulated with advanced queries or accessed directly.

FreeDB was created in response to Gracenote creating a more restrictive licensing practice for the CD players that access it. It is open source and can be downloaded if desired (it’s ~400MB). Although the interface is not as clean as Gracenote’s, it does allow more granular searching of it’s database (i.e. limiting searches by genre.)

He who controls the spice controls the universe! Or maybe he who controls the information controls the mix CD’s? Either way, hopefully this will help you to spend less time searching for tracks for those mix CD ideas and more time standing on the couch playing air guitar to them…

I just needed to get these listed so that I can leave 2005 behind and move onto something else. I think my latest phase is swinging more towards the independent artists. For the last week, I’ve been obsessively digging through myspace.com like I used to dig through dusty cardboard boxes for vinyl. Out with the old…

Lyrics Born - Later That Day (rap): LB is an indy rapper from Berkeley, CA that I first heard on Z-Trip’s Shifting Gears. He has clever samples and his style is different than what I’m used to. When LB is on, my feet are tappin’ right along with him. When I think of the tracks where he’s a little mumbly, I refrain from pulling the CD off the rack. This CD is like chocolate truffles: When I’m in the mood for it, I gorge myself sick, and then won’t go near it for a while. I also have to give this a little extra credit for being an indy release and having the only skits on a rap album that I actually found amusing. B

Lyrics Born - Same !@#$ Different Day (rap): This is essentially a remix of Later that Day with some new tracks thrown in. This is a little more upbeat than Later that Day, and got my feet moving. I’m generally not a fan of the remix, but I like these remixes and original versions equally well. B

Kelly Clarkson - Breakaway (pop): This is pop. You can put whatever crappy pop on the CD’s you send me without fear because you are protected with the knowledge that I intentionally bought a goddamn Kelly Clarkson album . On the first half of the album, she does contrived pop, written right out of the pop rule books. Then, somewhere around the middle of the album, the songs turn into something that could only have been written with the sole purpose of wooing American idol judges. C+

Cut Chemist - Litmus Test (hip-hop): The first time I heard Cut Chemist was on a CD called “Brain Freeze” which was a continuous mix of 45’s by Cut Chemist and DJ shadow, and I was blown away by his skill and track selection. When I accidentally discovered that Cut Chemist had his own CD out, I sought to pick it up. Unfortunately for me, the only place that I could find it was on Amazon for $15. After the high price and having to wait for delivery, I was a little peeved to find out that the CD was actually a 27 minute EP. After listening to it, though, I find it hard to argue with the quality. It’s worth the price of a full album. Maybe not $15, but at least $10-12. Fuck, I’m cheap. B+

Ozzy Osbourne - Bark at the Moon (METAL!): My friend Dan assumed that I had a copy of this that he could borrow, but alas, this was only available in my collection on cassette tape… until NOW. It’s not as great as I remembered back when we used to write “OZZY” on our knuckles, but it works. B-

Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman (METAL!): Ok This is another CD that Dan asked for, and it is twice as good as I remembered. If I thought that you didn’t have enough things to make fun of me for, I’d write OZZY on my knuckles in pen in honor of this album. B+

Nelly - Nellyville (rap): I picked this up on my sister’s recommendation, and I enjoyed it despite its blatant pop uselessness. Even if you think that there is a way to argue against a statement like “It’s getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes,” you will probably agree that there is something amusing about owning a CD containing a song called “Pimp Juice.” I wish I could use the phrase “pimp juice” correctly in a sentence without sounding like an a-hole. B

Mix Master Mike - Bangzilla (hip-hop): Mix Master Mike is the Beastie Boys DJ, and arguably one of the top technical DJ’s out there. I wouldn’t begin to say that he doesn’t know his way around a turntable, but he doesn’t seem to have a clue on how to get feet or asses moving. There used to be this heavy metal guitar player in the 80’s named Yngwie Malmsteen who could play guitar solos better than anyone else on the planet. He used to play all classical riffs in a heavy metal style. Despite his talent, his lack of intuition on what the audience wanted landed him in the same place that MMM seems to be headed: The $1.99 bin. D

Barry White - Best of Barry White (soul): I bought this solely to put a song on the cowbell collection, but #1GF! agrees that no matter where you might be listening to this one,you will inevitably develop the feeling that you should be making sweet love to something. B+

The Chemical Brothers - Push the Button (hip-hop): I’m not really into dance music, but I will admit to having a soft spot for turntablists like the Chemical Brothers. Like their other albums, I find that even though some tracks just sort of glide by without me noticing, there is always a couple on each disc that I really end up really loving. B

DirtBombs - If You Don’t Already Have a Look (garage): If you like the Dirtbombs, this is over 50 Dirtbombs tracks spread over 2 CDs. Half of the collection are covers and the other half are original tracks. Even if you are only mildly interested in the Dirtbombs, you are bound to find a normal album’s worth of tracks to enjoy in this set. For Dirtbombs fans: It’s 50 tracks. B+

System of a Down - Hypnotize (metal): I really loved SOAD’s first 2 albums, but this release shows absolutely zero growth or effort. There is an adage in today’s music market that it’s rare for a band to put out 3 solid albums, and I really thought SOAD would end up being successful exception. Unfortunately, even willing myself to like this album didn’t do it any good. It’s so annoying that I wanted to invent a bigger insult than “pile of shit.” All I came up with was “pile of fuck,” which is not only lame, but vastly more thought-provoking than this entire album. D

Avril Lavigne - Let Go (pop): This album came out in 2002, and the only reason that I never bought it, was that there was no fucking way I was going to pay $10+ for an Avril Lavigne CD. If you don’t know what she sounds like, turn on the radio. She’ll be on there within 2 minutes. I feel dirty admitting this one. B

Kanye West - Late Registration (rap): I’m not really sure why this album was peppered all over the “Best of 2005″ lists that have come out in the last few months, but those lists suckered me right in. Had I not wandered by this CD while in possession of a not only a BestBuy gift card but an ear worm of “Gold Digger”, this would’ve stayed right on the shelf. It was a perfect storm. That’s not to say it’s a bad album. In fact, when it’s on, it’s on. When it’s not, I can say that it doesn’t suck enough to repeatedly hit the skip button (barring those stupid ass skits that rap albums seem to be so fond of these days). Although my head might unconsciously bump around during it, I don’t hear anything groundbreaking enough that would cause me to put it on a “Best of 2005″ list. B

Various Artists - Funk Masters & Ultimate Funk (funk): These were actually a pair of ten dollar discs that I picked up at BestBuy on a whim because I thought that #1GF! might like them. Together, they make a pretty kick ass pair of 70’s funk party albums. There’s plenty of Cowbell in there, too. A

Nelly - Sweatsuit (rap): It’s Nelly. It’s not quality, but I find it puts a smile on my face. It’s immature enough in both style and attitude to be reminiscent of a talented 13 year old with a drum machine. It’s pop. I can’t really give it much more than that. C+

The Donnas - Gold Medal (rock): Shit man, I’ve been following the Donnas since they were teenage girls touring the country playing Ramones-style pop with half the stink and twice the sweet. Gold Medal is nothing new. It’s just the next step forward for them after their last album, “Up All Night.” There is no real deviation from their solid pop/rock formula, so it’s guaranteed good, but not really ground breaking. B

The Detroit Cobras - Mink, Rat or Rabbit (garage): I think I found the Detroit Cobras via the Dirtbombs. They’re a very 60’s garage band fronted by a woman singer who has a vocal style that’s slightly tough and sweet at the same time. There’s something indistinctly smoldering and sexy about the combination of the two that I can’t put my finger on. Crap. Sometimes around the middle of the album I wonder, “Now, where the hell are my pants?” B

Dirtbombs - Ultraglide in Black (garage): Years ago, I had seen Mick Collins (lead voc.) at a club when he was in a band called Blacktop. The band was minimalist garage, but Mick sang from the soles of his feet. After that show, I bought and subsequently wore out those Blacktop albums. Then, Mick faded slowly back into my collection until a few weeks ago when one of the CD’s from the CD challenge featured a track that sounded like it featured Collins on vocals. I later found out that the track was by The Dirtbombs. Like BlackTop, the Dirtbombs are minimal garage fronted by Collins’ soul vocals, so I ran out and picked it up very soon after. Ultraglide in Black is wall to wall classic soul covers and really serves as a showcase for the band’s style. Classic soul purists might not like the sloppy garage liberties that have rendered some of these tracks indistinguishable from the originals, but others should find this to be a good introduction to the band. B+

Holy Fuck, can we all agree that I need to put this whole cowbell obsession to rest, once and for all? Below I’ve listed the 6 CD’s that I put together for my sister for Xmas. It was a 2 month job, and I spent as much time on the flow of the tracks on the discs as I did hunting through my CDs to find them. I can’t say I did a great job, but 108 tracks of cowbell without relying on any typical classic rock tracks disqualifies any arguments against quality.

I named the collection Cowbell++ as a nod to the nerds* and made her color coded CD covers to make them look a little cooler. And even if you think the whole thing is retarded, who can argue with a title like “Cowbell++ Volume 2: The Wrath of Khow”?**

The first 2 CD’s make no distinction between analog and digital cowbell, but the last 4 are solely analog. No matter if you are a cowbell purist (ANALOG OR DEATH! DINK DINK!) or loose hiphop cowbell aficionado (Whatcha gonna do with all that bell, all that bell up in them jeans?), there should be at least a disc that you can appreciate.

I can easily say that this is the most time I spent on an present. The first 2 are for dancin’ when no one is lookin’, the second two are for drivin’ when no one is clockin’, and the final two are for seducin’ rich old timers when the nurse ain’t around. I’m proudest of the tracks on the first two, the covers on the second two, and the fact that I pulled the fifth and sixth out of my ass in a mere two days right before Xmas. And if you can believe it, there were actually a few tracks that didn’t make the final cut. With this post, I am officially putting the cowbell talk to rest. Happy Xma-birthday, Sis. Game Over.

*Putting ++ after a variable in some programming languages is a way to increment the variable. For example, if $x=665, then $x++ will increment $x to 666.
**The subtitle of Star Trek II was “The Wrath of Khan.”

Cowbell++ Vol. 1: WTF (What the Funk)?

1. Sir Mix-A-Lot - Baby Got Back
2. Jay-Z - Big Pimpin’ (Feat. UGK)
3. Z Trip - All About the Music (feat. Whipper Whip)
4. Sugar Hill Gang - Rapper’s Delight
5. Beastie Boys - Hey Ladies
6. Marvin Gaye - Got to Give it Up
7. Stevie Wonder - Don’t You Worry ’bout a Thing
8. KC And The Sunshine Band - Sound Your Funky Horn
9. The Chemical Brothers - Orange Wedge
10. Aretha Franklin - Rock Steady
11. Ohio Players - Love Rollercoaster
12. Con Funk Shun - Too Tight
13. Gap Band - Steppin’ (Out)
14. Lipps Inc - Funkytown
15. KC And The Sunshine Band - Get Down Tonight
16. Dj Shadow - The Number Song (Cut Chemist Party Mix)
17. KC And The Sunshine Band - (Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty
18. Nelly - Hot In Herre
19. Lyrics Born - Do That There (feat. Cut Chemist)
20. Stevie Wonder - Pastime Paradise

Cowbell++ Vol. 2: The Wrath of Khow

1. Gap Band - Party Train
2. Chemical Brothers - Come Inside
3. The Chemical Brothers - In Dust We Trust/Song to the Siren
4. Missy Elliott - Work It
5. Shannon - Let The Music Play
6. Beastie Boys - Alright Hear This
7. Nelly - Na Nana Na (ft Jazze Pha & Jasper Cameron)
8. Newcleus - Jam On It
9. Nelly - Flap Your Wings
10. The Chemical Brothers - Chemical Beats
11. Chemical Brothers - Hold Tight London
12. Missy Elliott - Go To The Floor
13. N.W.A - Gangsta Gangsta
14. Chemical Brothers - Close Your Eyes
15. Barry White - Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love, Babe

Cowbell++ Vol. 3: Rockin’ Without Dokken

1. Fu Manchu - Ampn’
2. The Donnas - All Messed Up
3. Fu Manchu - Mongoose
4. Guns N’ Roses - Nightrain
5. Skid Row - Monkey Business
6. Cinderella- Shake Me
7. The Dirtbombs - Maybe Your Baby
8. The Donnas - You Wanna Get Me High
9. The Dirtbombs - Little Miss Chocolate Syrup
10. Southern Culture on the Skids - Voodoo Cadillac
11. The Donnas - On the Rocks
12. Guns N’ Roses - Mr. Brownstone
13. Fu Manchu - Separate Kingdom
14. Guns N’ Roses - Welcome To The Jungle

Cowbell++ Vol. 4: Rock… ’til you Drop

1. Fu Manchu - Blue Tile Fever
2. Fu Manchu - Urethane
3. Guns N’ Roses - It’s So Easy
4. Dirtbombs - Livin’ For The City
5. Fu Manchu - Time To Fly
6. Fu Manchu - Trapeze Freak
7. Son Volt - Drown
8. Southern Culture on the Skids - Fried Chicken and Gasoline
9. Dirtbombs - Do You See My Love (For You Growing)
10. Fu Manchu - Mega-Bumpers
11. Guns N’ Roses - Think About You
12. Beatles - Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey
13. Fu Manchu - Wurkin’
14. Fu Manchu - Freedom of Choice
15. Guns N’ Roses - My Michelle
16. Rage Against The Machine - Killing In The Name

Cowbell++ Vol. 5: Lounging Around

1. Perez Prado - If you knew Susie (Like I know Susie)
2. Esquivel - Cherokee
3. Tito Puente and Woody Herman - New Cha-Cha
4. Tito Rodriguez - The Magnificent Seven
5. Stan La Baum and His Orchestra - A La Salud
6. Yma Sumac - Gopher Mambo
7. Esquivel - All of Me
8. Jackie Davis - Glow Worm Cha-Cha-Cha
9. Martin Denny - Hawaii Tattoo
10. Laurindo Almeida & The Bossa Nove All Stars - Recado Bossa Nova
11. John Buzon Trio - It Must Be True
12. Jack Costanzo and Don Swan - Bei Mir Bist Du Schon / La Furiosa
13. Tito Puente and Woody Herman - Mambo Herd
14. Esquivel - Speak Low
15. Paris Combo - Moi, mon a me et ma conscience
16. Rinky Dinks - Choo Choo Cha Cha
17. Dean Martin - Cha Cha Cha D’ Amour
18. Tito Puente and Woody Herman - Tito Meets Woody
19. Yma Sumac - Taki Rari
20. Perez Prado - Ola Conga
21. Sounds Orchestra - Mas Que Nada
22. Los Albinos - The Swinging Conga
23. Mallet Men - 80 Drums Around The World / Dark Eyes / It Happened In Monterey

Cowbell++ Vol. 6: easy Does It

1. Esquivel - Carioca
2. Tito Puente and Woody Herman - Cha Cha Chick
3. Unknown - Rock Cha Rhumba
4. Lex Baxter - Voodoo Dreams-Voodoo
5. Martin Denny - Stone God
6. The Peter Loland Orchestra - La Cucarachacha
7. Walter Wanderly,Astrud Gilberto - O Menino Decse O Morro
8. Dick Hyman - The Minotaur
9. Esquivel - You Belong to My Heart
10. Perez Prado - Zelda’s Theme
11. Esquivel - Boulevard of Broken Dreams
12. Esquivel - My Blue Heaven
13. The Eliminators - Staccato
14. George Auld - You’re My Thrill
15. Laurindo Almeida & The Bossa Nova All Stars - Desafinado
16. Perez Prado and His Orchestra - Moniter Mambo
17. Georges Garvarentz - Haschisch Party
18. Henry Mancini - Springtime for Hitler
19. Walter Wanderly - A Nega Se Vingou
20. Ruben Calzado and His Orchestra - Chiquito

I can’t say much about them because they are a part of my sister’s XMAS (or B-Day?) gift, but the Cowbell CDs are complete.