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

There’s been a lot of talk about the new announcement Steve Jobs is flying into London for today. Some have said it’s that The Beatles (among others) will be added to the iTunes library. Others are now saying it’s that the entire EMI catalogue will be added to iTunes “DRM free”. Both of these are significant. First there has been a long standing dispute between the record label founded by the Beatles called “Apple” and what was formerly known as “Apple Computer” that now calls itself “Apple Inc.”. The reasons for this dispute, while petty should be obvious, especially when you consider how Apple has become such a music powerhouse with the advent of the iPod and the iTunes music store.

So what’s it going to be? Will Jobs and EMI both put their money where their mouths are and go DRM free? Or it is the long awaited addition of the Beatles to the iTunes collection? Only time will tell and unfortunately I’ll be on a plane when it happens, if it happens. Let’s not forget that yesterday was April Fools Day.

UPDATE: DRM free music from EMI. get the scoop here.

Technorati Tags: Apple, geek, iPod, itunes, music, pop, tech

I haven’t done it in awhile, but it’s back. The random iTunes playlist. I just put iTunes (in this case, not the iPod) on shuffle and played. Here’s what happened. I’ve put a button to the iTunes music store after the song. You have to have iTunes to use these buttons.

1. Cold Cold Heart - Nora Jones

   
   
   

2. I Hear Your Name - The Dead Milkmen

   
   
   

3. Theme From Magnum, P.I. - Mike Post

   
   
   

4. Send a Picture of Mother - Johnny Cash

   
   
   

5. Primary - The Cure

   
   
   

6. Eternal Flame - The Bangles

   
   
   

7. The Man Who Sold The World - Nirvana

   
   
   

8. Heaven - Los Lonely Boys

   
   
   

9. Listen to the Band - The Monkees

   
   
   

10. I don’t Wanna Hear It - Minor Threat

    
    
    

There you have it. I hope to do these more often as they’re fun to look back on.

I didn’t make any comments on these. I’d like to hear what anyone reading this might have to say about any of these songs. Please leave your comments!

Technorati Tags: music, itunes

By now everyone should know that the Godfather of Soul James Brown passed away. While his influence on music will probably never leave us, he will still be missed.

I always feel bad when someone’s passing is overshadowed by some other event. In this case, the celebration of the birth of our Lord. So if you have time, please say a little prayer for him and his family.

Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord,
And let perpetual Light shine upon them.
May their souls
And the souls of all the faithful departed
Through the mercy of God
Rest in peace.
Amen.

Technorati Tags: JamesBrown, music, pop, celebrity

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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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”.

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”.

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.

Hat tip to Rachel And The City for first posting it.