Wild Tangents
Marc talks about life in Nashville, life as a Catholic and life as a geek.

I just found this band. Their MySpace page says they’re from Nashville and they have a great sound. You can find clips of their music on both their MS page and their website. Both sites are linked below. The unusual thing about this band is that they have a hard core conservative theme to their music. While that’s not necessarily outside the norm for the Nashville music scene, it is for the hard rock scene. While I don’t necessarily agree with all their stances, I do find it refreshing to listen to some good rock and roll that’s not overrun by hard left politics.

Go check them out!

The Right Brothers – MySpace Page

The Right Brothers – Home Page

Technorati Tags: music, politics, Nashville

If anyone had any hope that Britney and Kevin would be getting back together, that hope is smothered now.
From the article:

Britney Spears has removed K-Fed from her MySpace friends list.

Being removed from someone’s Myspace friend list is the end of the world. I know this for a fact because I was removed Avil Lavigne’s list. It hurt so bad. I thought I would never be able to move on. But eventually I got to be added to the friend list for Murphy’s Bar in Memphis. Now I can drown all my sorrows in nice pint of Guinness.

Technorati Tags: Britney, K-Fed, music, pop, news

…the Violent Femmes. I don’t know why. Their music just never appealed to me. Maybe I always thought of Gordon Gano’s nasal singing style as “whinny”. I know it was the vocals, because otherwise I think they were fine musicians. Anyway, I would also just get sick of hearing them over and over since I had quite a few friends that just loved them. I mean LOVED them. So when you consider the reasons for my love/hate relationship with the music of this band, I’m sure you can understand my delight upon learning that Atlanta based Gnarls Barkley (no relation to the basketball player I hear) has done a cover of the Violent Femmes song “Gone Daddy Gone”. Take a look at the video below. It’s wonderfully weird.
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(more…)

This is the cutest thing I’ve seen in a while. It’s the Peanuts gang doing a video for Outkast’s “Hey Ya”. So if you’re up for the cuteness, press that funy triangle thang that means “play”.

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This post will serve two purposes.  The first is that I feel like doing s random playlist. The idea ass always comes from Fr. jim at  Dappled Things.  My method is a little different though.  I’ll just take the last ten played songs from the “recently played” smart list in iTunes.  All songs link the iTunes music store.  You have to have to have iTunes installed for them to work.  Artist names link to Wikipedia.

So here goes:

1. Lost Highway – Hank Williams
2. In My Life – Johnny Cash
3. The Boys of Summer – The Ataris
4. Coolidge – Descendents
5. Take Me Apart – The Dead Milkmen
6. Lewis Boogie – Waylon Mallory Payne (From the MPST “Walk the Line“)
7. The Word – The Beatles
8. Planet Earth – Duran Duran
9. Never Let Me Down Again – Depeche Mode
10. Rock of Ages – Def Leppard

No, there are no witty comments from me this time.  Sorry.  I’ve been ill.

Oh….And I almost forgot.  The other reason for this post is to test out the Performancing for Firefox plugin.  It’s an extension that acts as a blog editor.  It looks like it has some promise, but this is the big test.  The big feature I wanted out of it is being able to post to my myspace blog.  Nothing else seems to have that feature.  Wish me luck….

I was reading this the other day. Steven talks about some record he had that he played over and over again in his youth (in the 80’s). For some reason it reminded me of Doctor in Distress, which was an ill conceived effort to save the BBC programe (isn’t that they way those people spell it?) “Doctor Who” while was on hiatus and was possibly to be canceled in 1985. Even though this song was recorded, the show did come back. It wouldn’t be canceled for another four years. This song however seems to live on. I remember it well too. I had a copy of the single. I have tried to forget it and hadn’t thought about it until reading Steven’s post. Well, I can’t keep it myself. I feel I must inflict it on all you reading this. So without delay, here is “Doctor in Distress”.

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Yes, it’s a bloody video. I tried to find an MP3, but all I found was this, which doesn’t seem to be there anymore. Besides, the video “enhances” the experience anyway.  Enjoy!

In my highschool days and quite a few of the years that followed, I was a part of the “punk rock” scene back in Memphis. This mostly involved going to shows at the Antenna club and trying real hard to look just like everyone else who was trying real hard not to look like anyone else, or something like that.

Sometime in 1992 Channel 5 News in Memphis did a special on the youth sub culture in Memphis. Well, it looks like someone took that and put it on Google Video. Here it is. See Joe Birch do the intros and Greeley Kyle do the story. I actually knew a lot of the these people. I wonder what happened to some of them, others I have a pretty good idea.
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Hat tip to Rachel And The City for first posting it.

One of my favorite blogs is Dappled things:

Fr Jim Tucker, generation X, priest of the Diocese of Arlington, in Northern Virginia.

Fr. Jim just recently did a post where he played his iPod in shuffle mode for ten songs then posted the list. I think it might be from a meme because he also posted the rules:

Get your ipod or media-player of choice, select your whole music collection, set the thing to shuffle (i.e., randomized playback), then post the first ten songs that come out. No cheating, no matter how stupid it makes you feel! Maybe link the songs to online music stores for readers’ convenience.

So, without much ado here’s my list. I’ve added as much commentary as I could.

1. Would? – Alice in Chains | I’ve loved this song ever since seeing them here in Nashville back in 90 something. This is the “unplugged verssion”.
2. Got to get you into my life – The Beatles | The song is older than me and has been one that I’ve sung along to since I was old enough to talk.
3. This is not a love song – PiL | Anyone who knew me in high school knows I was always a Johnny R fan. It’s not surprising one of his songs showed up.
4. You’re gonna change, or I’m gonna leave – Tom Petty | I know at least three people out there will be surprised to find out I’m a huge Hank fan (SR only of course). I’ve also always like Tom Petty too, so it’s natural that I have this great version of a timeless classic in my library.
5. Game of love – Santana and Michelle Branch | Nothing to see here, move along…But in all seriousness, if Fr. Jim can publish his list with a Morrissey song on it, I shouldn’t feel too cheesy for this one.
6. Warsaw – Joy Divison | One of the few of this bands songs I actually like. It has much more of a punk rock feel than most off their others.
7. Feel the pain – The Damned | Not exactly one of my favorite tracks by this band…..But I still love it.
8. Back in the USSR – The Beatles | It is what it is….A parody of political tensions at the time and pop music from the competition.
9. Evolution – SubHuMans | One of my favorite bands back in the day that no one else seemed to like.
10. Trust Me – Jesus Jones | Oh? And why should we trust you Mr. Edwards???? Really though, this band and EMF are about the closest you can get to PWEI without actually being PWEI. Since PWEI are like you know my favorite band, I have to like Jesus Jones….

So there it is, flame if you like. I’d do this one more often, but it’s too much work. :p

I might do another top whatever played list. Those are easy.

Ever since I posted my most played list the other day, I’ve been thinking about doing the same thing with my podcasts in iTunes to show my subscriptions. Well, here they are.

• “Catholic Insider” feed website – Father Roderick’s first podcast.
• “Catholic Cast Podcast” feed website – I don’t think Jason’s still doing this, but I keep it around just in case. I really miss “Conversations with an old man” the most.
• “Catholic NGO Voice” feed website
• “Praystation Portable” feed website – Morning and Evening Prayer from the Roman Breviary
• “MacCast – For Mac Geeks, by Mac Geeks” feed website – The only Mac cast I’ll listen to for more than a few minutes.
• “Cinecast” feed website – Movies reviews that are always amusing. *
• “Michael and Evo’s Slice of Scifi – Science fiction TV and movie news podcast” feed website – News about the world of Sci-Fi. *
• “SCI FI Channel – Official BSG Podcast” feed website – Executive Producer Ron Moore gives commentary to each episode. **
• “The Combat Information Center” feed website – Another BSG podcast. If anyone knows of another one done by someone less anal, let me know.
• “President’s Weekly Radio Address” feed website – W tellin’ it like it is….
• “PodcastWho” feed website – A Doctor Who podcast from a real Doctor Who geek. He goes over episodes new and old and other Who news.
• “this WEEK in TECH” feed website – A panel discussion with well known tech geeks. *
• “Security Now!” feed website – Steve Gibson tells Leo Laporte what networking and security is all about.
• “Doug’s AppleScripts for iTunes Podcast” feed website – This guy has an amazinf site full of Apple scripts for iTunes.
• “Arinze – Podcasting with a Vatican Official” feed website – I love this man. He’s such a gentle and simple teacher. I always love his answers to those non-existent “stupid questions”.
• “43 Folders” feed website – UM…Just listen…..Great if you are trying to get organized or have ADD. Merlin puts out a new podcast when he remembers to…. **
• “The Official LOST Podcast” feed website – I listen to this more for the bit with Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof. Not only are they funny, but sometimes they give away things they may or may not have meant to.
• “Inside the Net” feed website – Amber MacArthur give Leo the 411 on the latest Web 2.0 apps and sites.
• “Star Trek: The Section 31 Files” feed website – It’s not really a podcast so much as a radio drama type thing. You get to follow the crew of Section 31 ship as they try to save the galaxy and who knows, perhaps even time itself.
• “Daily Breakfast” feed website – Father Roderick’s new daily podcast. I love that banjo music!
• “One Minute Tip” feed website – Tips on how to better use you Mac. Sorry Windows folks….
• “commandN (iPod format)” feed website – A vidcast of Amber MacArthur, Jeff MacArthur and Mike Lazazzera. It’s more tech stuff.
• “Diggnation (videos)” feed website – As Alex would say, a discussion of some of the top stories from the social bookmarking site digg.com, that’s d-i-g-g-dot-com.
• “generally speaking – Lost Edition” feed website – A fan run Lost podcast, often includes a Christian prespective.
• “The Lost Podcast with Jay and Jack” feed website – Just another Lost podcast. But, these guys are hilarious.
• “Star Trek: Pioneers” feed website – Another Star Trek radio drama type show.
• “Catholic Minute” feed website – Father Roderick’s video cast.
• “The Cafeteria is Closed” feed website – Gerald’s podcast. It seems like he’s dong some Latin and getting us acquainted with old school liturgy.

Warning: The ones marked with an asterisk (*), sometimes have profanity in them. The ones marked with two (**) almost always have profanity.
Since Suzette started school this semester, I’ve been driving a lot. On her school days (MWF), I drive forty five minutes to her school, then an hour to my office. I then make the reverse trip in the evening. So, I get a lot of time to listen to podcasts. Please comment back with you favorite podcasts. I need some more to pass this time. Plus I would just like to know what everyone else is listening to. Thanks!

Robbie over at UrbanGrounds, inspired by Vodkapundit wrote about the top ten played songs from his iTunes list. I figured I would give it a go too. I was as surprised as anyone else at some of these. So, in the order they appear when sorted by play count are the top ten songs from my iTunes playlist. Note that this is my “Music” playlist with excludes podcasts and any other spoken word I have.

1. Firefly Theme – Joss Wedon
2. Stretcher Case – The Damned
3. Black Water – The Dobbie Brothers
4. The Boys of Summer – The Ataris
5. Jumping Someone Else’s Train – The Cure
6. Disco Man – The Damned
7. Your Eyes – The Damned
8. Why Can’t I? – Liz Phair
9. Love Song – 311
10. One Week – Barenaked Ladies
11. (Don’t Fear) The Reaper – Blue ÷yster Cult
12. Living – The Circle Jerks
13. Last dance – The Cure
14. Fascination street – The Cure
15. The End of the World – The Cure
16. 1 of the 2 – The Damned
17. Love Song – The Damned
18. Plan 9 Channel 7 – The Damned
19. Lively Arts – The Damned
20. Where Do Ya Draw The Line – Dead Kennedys
21. Sorrow Is A Woman – Def Leppard
22. Policy of Truth – Depeche Mode
23. Funkopolis – Die Warzau
24. Rock Lobster – Family Guy

I’m not really sure how those ended up in the top spots……But there it is…..

If I’ve interested you in my musical taste, you can check out my profile at last.fm.

I’m wondering if anyone else’s list is as lame as mine. Please feel free to post yours in the comments.

UPDATE: In order to show supreme lameness, I bumped it up to the top twenty-five. The really odd thing here is that the list in not very representative of the of the music I have in iTunes.  I would guess and say that Johnny Cash, The Bealtes and The Cure are the are the artists with the largest “presence” in iTunes.  But when you looks at the list of top played (I usually go with the randomized “shuffle” setting), you really only see the cure there.  I do have a lot by The Damned too, so that one makes sense.