deanpence

Dick in a Box

Here’s hoping that Hulu’s embed feature works.

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Trying out Last.fm

I just signed up for last.fm, a sort of social music recommendation service, mainly because I need more music to listen to. I’m letting my “100 Most Played” smart playlist run in iTunes tonight, and we’ll see what it recommends tomorrow.

The artists in my “100 Most Played” playlist:

• Ben Folds
• Coldplay
• Eisley (mostly chick band with a lead vocalist whose vowels make me wonder whether I’m getting a blowjob; supposedly a Christian band, but they ain’t singin’ no batshit stuff)
• Ben Folds Five
• The Little Willies (Willie cover band with Norah Jones)
• Cake
• Willie Nelson
• Las Rubias del Norte (very original group from Brooklyn that does South American covers)
• Guster (excellent, original pop)
• Rufus Wainwright (too gay to be pop; unique stuff)

Maybe you can see why I need some music recommendations. I rarely buy new CDs or digital tracks. That’s 10 artists in 100 tracks. Not a huge variety. I never shuffle. I listen in album order. Just to give me some credit, there are more than ten albums in that playlist.

I did recently discover the new Norah Jones, which I bought, an indie guy named Darren Smith, which I bought, and the year-old Guster album, of which I have never heard one single track, despite the fact that it’s one of my favorite bands. I need help. Maybe last.fm help. We’ll see.

Incidentally, I just ran into what may be my favorite track on Coldplay’s “X&Y”, “Fix You”. I love it, love it, love it. The build-up groove rocks my world, and that chorus (or whatever it is) is what a bold pop-rock climax should be.

Artists last.fm is recommending so far on very little data:

• Nick Drake (who?)
• Death Cab for Cutie (know the name)
• Johnny Cash (I’m a big fan of his old stuff; I just don’t own any of it.)
• Paul Simon (Who doesn’t know Paul Simon?)
• Rufus Wainwright (already got it)
• Radiohead (cult-fad band in the ’90s?)
• Wilco (heard them; quite good)
• Sufjan Stevens (who?)
• Iron & Wine (who?)
• Ben Folds Five (already got it)
• Modest Mouse (maybe heard the name)
• Weezer (thought they were an alt-punk band)
• The Beatles (they’ve got a moderately respectable catalog—heh)
• The Postal Service (never heard of them)
• Bob Dylan (Matthew says he sucks llama clitoris.)
• Neil Young (Didn’t he convert to Christo-batshit-ism?)
• Beck (abandoned him when he put out his acoustic album)
• The Shins (who?)
• Van Morrison (Matthew has equally bad words for him.)

I mentally prepare myself for the insults and typographical arrows that are to ensue because I do not spend a high enough proportion of minutes per day obsessing over musical nuance, every credit on every CD, and the entire catalog of popular music since 1900.

Posted in article | 14 Comments »

Wenches Archive

With all the talk about the famous “Wenches” song (officially “Battlehymn of a Pimp”), I figured I’d better make an archive before memory of its greatness disappeared. Here ye go:

[Note: This requires Flash to work.]

Thanks to the folks who made the XSPF Web Music Player.

Thanks also to MochaLab for his Disco version; the rest are performed by the matthew show and me; I wrote the original song.

Posted in music | 5 Comments »

Matthew Loves Lonely Women

So I’d heard previously that my friend Matthew, musician and formerly co-host of The Cornhole Show, had one of his tracks in some famous YouTube video, but I’d never seen it. While little miss lonelygirl15 isn’t too horribly interesting, it’s fun seeing my friend’s music on something relatively well-known—at least among the 16-year-olds of the world. Enjoy:

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