Me Gusta Obaba!

VIVA OBABA!

Latinos in Texas are catching the Obaba fever. more here.

but i think it loses a little something in the traslation

Neil Young Part III: Best of the Rest

If you’ve read the first two lists and are checking into this one, that hopefully means you’re somewhat interested in Neil Young’s career. Perhaps you’ve even had time to check out some of the essential selections, and maybe even one or two of the cataclysms. This list is for those of you who are familiar with the essentials, enjoyed them, and are hungry for more.

These lists are not comprehensive. In other words, there are a number of studio albums that I’ve left off for various reasons. Some of the omissions are repetitive of other Young material, and fail to capture the interesting elements of their forebears. Others are still pretty good in their own way, but fail to distinguish themselves as being worth the bother.

I want to make that distinction, because the albums below aren’t the “average” albums. Instead, they’re all really great albums for people who like Neil Young, are familiar with some or most of the essentials, and are looking to check out some of his other stuff. These aren’t the best albums to begin with, but they are great if you want to continue your appreciation of Young.

Neil Young Part II: The Train Wrecks

Risk is an inextricable part of any creative expression. It is impossible for an artist to distinguish their work if they do not attempt to break or reshape the mold of their art in some fashion. What would the world of visual art look like if Picasso had never broken the barriers between his subjects and their surroundings? What would music sound like without the 1965 Newport Folk Festival or Bitches Brew?

But, these are only examples of risks that resulted in successful outcomes. Just as risk is essential to creativity, failure is an inherent and inevitable outcome of risk. This is obvious when considered in an abstract sense, but the idea becomes more perplexing when we see it take shape in the real world. Stevie Wonder reached his artistic zenith in 1976 and followed it up three short years later with Journey into the Secret Lives of Plants. Sting released some of the best music of the early 1980s with The Police before recording a duet with Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart.

Even though these artistic developments may be difficult and sometimes even painful to hear, it’s important to embrace the bad with the good, because it helps to form a complete picture of the subject. If a society can be judged by entering its prisons, an artist can be judged by the albums s/he released in the 80s.

While driving down Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, a young folk musician named Stephen Stills spotted a hearse driving in the opposite lane. He recognized the driver as a quiet and intense Canadian whom he had met nearly a year earlier at a folk club in Thunder, Ontario. Upon their initial meeting, the two musicians had immediately taken to one another. They shook hands and departed with a vague agreement to work together in the future, but the transient nature of a musician’s life had made it difficult for the two aspiring artists to reconnect. This moment marked the first time Stills had seen the man since they first met.

Thinking quickly, Stills pulled a u-turn in the middle of the street and flagged down the hearse’s driver. They agreed to form a band on the spot, calling themselves Buffalo Springfield, and released their first album just a few months later. Headlined by a hit single that took a whimsical look at the Vietnam War (”For What It’s Worth”), the band dominated the airwaves with one of the most defining songs of the era.

Buffalo Springfield’s lifespan was brief–the band broke up two years after their formation. Despite this, the Canadian driving that hearse evolved into one of the most famous musicians of the twentieth century. His name is Neil Young, and for the last forty years he has challenged, inspired and confounded the world of popular music.

Due to his prolific output and his propensity for releasing “difficult” material, Neil Young is a daunting figure for those who are unfamiliar with his work. When an artist has released over thirty studio albums, it’s hard to know where to start and what to avoid. The following is a how-to guide for those who aren’t Neil Young fans, but are interested in learning more about this enigmatic and brilliant musician.

I’ve chosen three different categories for Young’s work: the essentials, the train wrecks, and the decent albums that are worth investment but probably aren’t good launching pads. I’m going to avoid discussing the collaborative efforts, such as the aforementioned Springfields and Young’s work with Messirs Crosby, Stills and Nash. All of that material is worth checking out, but this is a pure assessment of Neil Young. I am also refusing to consider Young’s live albums (that’s a topic that deserves its own series of posts), and the bootleg/unreleased material (Chrome Dreams, Where the Buffalo Roam, etc.) This is only the official discography.

I am also dividing this post into installments. The essential albums are included with this post (click the “read more” tab below), with the other two lists to follow at a later date. If you’re interested, I recommend listening to these albums in the order that they’re listed.

Enjoy, and don’t forget to keep on rockin’ in the free world!

I Miss Johnny Cash

This video makes me feel a little bit better, though. Did you know that Shel Silverstein wrote this song?

My ode to Val’s Day…

One of my favorite songs, from a top 10 album (always) for me…

Lyrics below the fold…
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Fuck American Idol, Stairway to Stardom has real talent!

Stairway to Stardom was some kind of public access show in the 70s and 80s that has less rigorous standards than Star Search, Showtime at The Apollo, or any talent show on television. Youtube has many of their greatest hits. Here are some of my favorites. Go below the fold for more…

In honor of that special something.something moving to Canadia…

The Flashbulb Uploads Latest Album To Torrent Sites

I had mentioned in a previous comment to Big Jar that if he liked Aphex Twin, he should give The Flashbulb’s “Kirlian Selections” a chance… It’s an amazing album that is something I think most people should at least listen to once. Little did I know when I made that comment that The Flashbulb was just about to release his newest album directly to a major torrent site. If you were to “pirate” the latest album by The Flashbulb “Soundtrack To A Vacant Life” from one of the many torrent sites out there, it was most likely uploaded by the artist himself (Benn Jordan). In an html file inside the torrent you will find this message…

Hello listener…downloader…pirate…pseudo-criminal…

If you can read this, then you’ve more than likely downloaded this album from a peer to peer network or torrent.

You probably expect the rest of this message to tell you that you’re hurting musicians and breaking just about every copyright law in the book. Well, it won’t tell you that.

What I would like to tell you is that my record label understands that a large portion of people pirate music because it is easier than buying it. CDs scratch easily, most pay-per-download sites have poor quality and ****ty DRM protection, and vinyl is near impossible to find or ship without hassle.
In many cases I wonder why people buy CDs at all anymore. A few like the tangible artwork, some haven’t adapted to MP3s yet, but most do it because they have a profound love for music and want to support the artists making it. Kind of restores your faith in humanity for a moment eh?

So, now what?
Like the album? About to go “support the artist” on iTunes?
Well, don’t.
Alphabasic is currently in a legal battle against Apple because NONE of our material (Sublight Records included) receives a dime of royalty from the vast amount of sales iTunes has generated using our material.

Want to buy a CD just to show your support?
If you don’t particularly like CDs, don’t bother.
Retailers like Best Buy and Amazon spike the price so high that their cut is often 8 times higher than the artist’s. Besides, most CDs are made out of unrecyclable plastic and leave a nasty footprint in your environment.

If you do particularly like CDs, buy them from the label (in our case, alphabasic.com). After manufacturing costs are recuperated, our artists usually receive over 90% of the actual money coming out of your wallet.
In addition, all of our physical products are made out of 100% recycled material.

Want to show your support?
Go here and browse our library of lossless, DRM-free downloads.
Already have that?
Then feel free to donate whatever you want to your favorite artist. 100% will go directly to them.
Hell, you can even donate a penny just to thank the artist.

If you really like ‘The Flashbulb - Soundtrack To A Vacant Life’ and want to show your support without it going to greedy retailers, distributors, and coked-up label reps, then click the button below.
[link to http://www.alphabasic.com/index2.htm ]
If you send us your mailing address, Alphabasic may occasionally send you various goodies (overstocks, stickers, even rare CDs) in appreciation and encouragement for your support.
Thanks for reading.
Who knows if my little business plan here will work to fund new releases, but even failure is better than the crappy label/distributor/retailer system musicians have suffered from for over 50 years.
We hope you enjoy the music as much as we do releasing it.
Finally, if you plan on sharing this release, please include this file. The only reason it is here is to show the listener where he can support his favorite artists!

Benn Jordan
CEO - Alphabasic Records

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I would highly encourage everyone to find this album, download it, and if you like it, send the man a donation. Perhaps we can all encourage more artists to start supporting a system where a middleman (the RIAA and money grubbing record labels) are not needed.. If you needed a reason to stop buying shitty DRMed/poorly encoded Apple iTunes music, you heard it from Weird Al, now from another artist. DON’T BUY FROM ITUNES. Almost nothing gets to the artist.
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Peace..
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