End of Summer Playlist 2008

End of Summer Playlist 2008


While this has been a busy summer full of local festivals; it is sad to say that the spoils of summer have not been as plentiful as recent memory serves. Show #23 has been changed several times and then there was the Peecee blow out where the most recent playlists were lost to the ether. Now Fall is upon me like the doom of winter and I have to get it in gear. To abide by my self-imposed deadline here is a quick playlist with some mp3 links to said tunes (ethical or not). Enjoy:

1) The Young Knifes of Superabundance with “Turn Tail” – I stumbled on this and if said hey radiohead what would your music sound like if you were 20 years younger when you made the Bends. This is what it would sound like.

2) Idaho from the Forbidden EP “The Thick and the Thin” (mp3via sneakmove)- I am late comer to Jeff Martin’s music, so it is all new to me. Very ethereal soundscape material no wonder he mostly does soundtracks for movies.

3) British Sea Power from Do You Like Rock Music? brought “Waving Flags” – Trance guitars and shoe gazers geeks who apparently speak their own language. Subscribe to their newsletter and you will see what I mean.

4) Bruce Springsteen’s “Girls in their summer clothes” – Probably the best song from this past year. Really captures the essence of the title and reminds of the jersey shore hook line and sinker.

5) Cloud CultEverybody Here Is A Cloud” via their album Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes)
(from Fuel Friends) Has this new pornographer/arcade fire, shins vibe that I dig.

6) The Roadside Graves brought me the best title for a song called “Lot Lizards Ain’t Lip Kissers” via Pop Headwound from a Sort of Dylanesque vocals; totally alt country with a hippie lemon-lime twist. Also check out the shit kicking drum dirge “Ruby”. Good stuff fellers. You make Jersey proud.

Update: Summer 2009 playlist go here!

Review: The Gaslight Anthem 59 Sound jersey punk lite story

Review: The Gaslight Anthem 59 Sound jersey punk lite story


The strict state of rock is always trying to re-invent the storyline where the county lines have been defined for quite some time. To get your six string on and give it something new is as hard as making new octave chords out of the three that exist. The first three tracks on this record totally sound like the timber of Springsteen and music of some Southern Californian band holed up in the same apartment for a few years. The advantage for new bands is there are so many recent tenets who have come before in literature or Music who are the hometown mayors and pioneers as Bruce is to Asbury, as alliteration is to Tom Robbins and well punk is to the power chord. The good news is there are plenty of people to borrow from and bads news it just hard to be truly original. When you boil it down; the references are easy to hear if your record collection goes deep down to the marrow. Making the twists and turns your own from the scene around you is the trick and this is what they seem to do. The 59 Sound by The Gaslight Anthem is transparent and derivative for somebody like me but brand new for the next generation of music lovers. For execution style and in the singing at audience dept they deliver on just about the same plain as classic rock of The Hold Steady and best that Jersey has to offer these days. Real stuff exists in these lyrics and only gets into trouble from my pov when they try to be too accessible and take the first exit off the turnpike. They don’t break too many rock rules too much; borrowing from pop-culture but hey who am I to complain. I keep playing the record and listening so they are doing their job right. I am not bored and enjoy catching the bits and pieces of other songs I like so all is good here fellers. Fallon’s band rocks. 3+ thumbs up. Check them out on Emusic | Download The Backseat | The ’59 Sound

Other great New Jersey Bands you should be aware of:
Aviso’Hara – Sonic youth and flaming lips inspired – Last.fm | Emusic
Boss Jim Gettys – Big rock alla Nirvana and Green Day but snazzier – Zoommoozik
Eastern Anchors – Trail of dead with Hum peppered inside – Last.fm
The Slow Wire – Pixies mixed with some GBV goes along way – Last.Fm

There are a lot more.

Mr. Thumb Trax East tunes on last.fm

It has been a long time since I have had this cassette kicking around, and I am sure Jhon Thumb has a better version somewhere of these tunes but the other day I took the time to post 7 tunes by the New Brunswick, NJ band Mr. Thumb on last.fm. The band played with Barkmarket, Nude Swirl, Mule, and whole bunch of other nameless national acts. The music can best be described as classic prog grunge. I would start with

Flowers Are not Evil

and work my way back-up. Enjoy!

Former drummer Alum included: Ken Devoe, Gregor, Dave Rosenberg(aka D Crayola from Deadguy/Lifetime/Transiliva) and bunch of other dudes I can’t remember their names- about 3 others. You know who you are.

Former singers: Bil Weis (trax east album) and Karl Munzel (This time it is gonna fuckin’ hurt ep)

Bass: Yours truly D Buzz

Guitar/vox: Jhon Thumb

In other blogosphere news:

There are some eastern anchors trax posted on MS which were recently recorded at Moonlight Mile in Hoboken. The anchors are also slated to play a free show at Maxwells Sat Aug 30th w/ Brooklyn’s Ff, Stuyvesant and No Pasaran! Rock.

Support Artists on last.fm just by listening!

Support Artists on last.fm just by listening!


The time has come where every small town garage band can get paid directly by advertising depending on songs played directly on last.fm by their Artist Royalty program! (Not download)I didn’t believe it at first when announced this past January but only time will tell when the first reports come in this October. This is a huge leap for music fans supporting their favorite artists. Caveat is you don’t belong to a online collection company that has the online rights and you must own world wide distribution. I’m no lawyer but I think US $10.00 @ .005 a play is 200,000 plays? That is a lot of ad revenue or page views! So start listening to stuff online as much you like.

Start playing and get some Free music by:
The smooth indie rock sounds of The Slow Wire
The almighty noise rock anthems by Aviso’Hara | Own it on Emusic
The old-skool classic jersey alt-punk-rock of Psychic Fair
Albini produced and tweaked indie rock of Bubblegum Thunder
Brought to you by your fine friends from Headphone Music Recordings.

Here is the payment terms fine print:

>for the free radio service, 10% of the Share of Last.fm’s Net Revenue from the free radio service.

for the personalised premium radio service, the greater of 10% of the Share of Last.fm’s Net Revenue from the personalised radio service or US $0.0005 for each complete transmission on the personalised radio service of a track which forms part of Your Content transmitted on the Last.fm service.

>for the free on-demand service, 30% of the Share of Last.fm’s Net Revenue from the free on-demand service.

>for the premium on-demand service, the greater of 30% of the Share of Last.fm’s Net Revenue from the premium on-demand service or US $0.005 for each complete transmission on the prepaid or subscription on-demand service of a track which forms part of Your Content transmitted on the Last.fm service.