Author: Jester

Today, we will be exploring a couple of bands that sound like other bands, but still manage to keep their tunes unique enough to avoid mockery by me.

First off, we have the Ruffians, from New York City. They sound an awful lot like Flogging Molly, who in turn sound an awful lot like the Pogues. Happily, they’re willing to admit that they sound like Flogging Molly and the Pogues. I’d really love to see the Ruffians live, as they seem like they’d be a hell of a lot of fun- the sort of band you’d want to play your birthday party and drink all your beer. There’s a strong possibility they may do the best Pogues cover ever. Never have I heard a man sound so much like Shane McGowan without being age 40+ and an alcoholic.

And, secondly, are the Phenomenauts. Not only do they sound like Man Or Astroman? (only with vocals), they look like them, too. It’s kinda creepy, and somewhat eerie. However, they milk the rockabilly tip of the Man Or Astroman? sound a lot more than the surf side, so they actually come off as a more country type of band. Granted, how a band can be country, and also be from outer space, I’m not certain.

Seriously, though, both bands are worth checking out. Both the Ruffians and Phenomenauts have plenty of sound video samples on their sites (so you can check out each band in the comfort of your computer chair), along with links to buy their cds and assorted other merch.

I posted about Indie 103.1FM in LA a while back, and I think that if you liked that, you might be ready for a really indie radio station. It’s time for you all to delve into the exciting world of… COLLEGE RADIO!

School is about halfway through the fall session all across the country, meaning that college radio stations are finally getting their new recruits broken in.

For those of you out there not fortunate enough to live in a college town, you’re really missing something. There’s just something different about college radio, as opposed to your usual Clear Channel owned piece of crap. College radio will not play the same 40 songs all day, all week. College radio does not bombard you with the new Britney Spears single three times in one hour (an actual occurrence on one Kansas City radio station). There’s no morning drive-time show, featuring loudmouth asses making the same jokes day after day after fucking day.

This is not to say that college radio stations are the be-all, end-all of radio goodness. Lord knows, you give up a bit when you listen to one of them. Those cool-sounding, well-spoken djs that keep you entertained? Yeah… there’s probably one of them amongst the thirty or forty djs working at the station. And they probably work the 2am-4am slot on Wednesday mornings.

The rest of the on-air “talent” is more likely to skew towards the most awkward music geeks on the face of the planet or mind-numbingly dull and uninformed broadcast journalism majors. The former is going to use “um” and “uh” and “er” about four or five times per sentence spoken, bit will have a pithy comment or interesting tidbit about most of the music they play. The latter will be able to speak well, but will know next to nothing about the music they play, even to the point of mispronouncing band names, or out and out fucking up of band names. My personal favorites being the dj that referred to Gorky’s Zygotic Mimcy as Gorky’s Psychotic Monkey, and the guy who pronounced Cibo Matto (“cheebow mah-toe”) as “Seebo Matto.”

Of course, this is the price you pay for getting to hear interesting music. Seriously, is there any other sort of radio station, other than college stations, where you can hear White Zombie, the Mountain Goats, Oingo Boingo, and DJ Shadow in the same twenty minute block? And, hell, at least at the station here in Lawrence (that would be the University of Kansas’ station, KJHK 90.7FM), you get a request filled in about ten minutes.

The Pixies, at the start of their reunion tour, way the fuck back in April, were contracting with a company to produce live discs of their shows, that were immediately available following each concert. Evidently, that was only for the first leg of the tour, because when they got to Kansas City, they weren’t doing it, and I haven’t been able to find that show anywhere, despite scouring every BitTorrent site I could lay my beady little eyes on.

But god bless Frank Blank and company, because they’ve finally wised up and made the shows available online. For the low, low price of $11.99, you can download 256 Kbps mp3s of the shows, starting on September 30 of this year. Coincidentally, the Kansas City show was October 1, so I just squeaked in under the gun.

Sure, it’d be nice to to be able to order them, a la Fugazi and their live cd series. Because, really, an mp3 is still an mp3, and if I’m dropping 12 bucks for a download, I’d at least like lossless media format, such as FLAC or something. Then again, I’m a geek.

Want an exclusive band t-shirt that makes people wonder where you got it? Want to help try and cure cancer? Want both at the same time? Go check out Shirts For A Cure, which… well, fuck it, I’ll let their website do the talking:

“The Syrentha J. Savio Endowment (SSE) was established by punk rock photographer Mark Beemer in 2002. SSE provides financial assistance to underprivileged women who cannot afford expensive breast cancer medicine and therapy. Because SSE is active within the punk rock community, the Shirts For A Cure project was launched to give voice to the social concerns of punk bands and their many fans.

When a band donates a shirt design, the design becomes an SSE exclusive. We sell the shirt and use the proceeds to help women fighting breast cancer. All shirts are printed on 100% pre-shrunk cotton. Each shirt costs $12 plus shipping and handling.”

Bands include the Explosion, Strike Anywhere, Avenged Sevenfold, the (International) Noise Conspiracy, Hot Water Music, Good Riddance, Thrice, Thursday, and Taking Back Sunday. Alkaline Trio, as well as Coheed & Cambria have shirts coming too. Check it out, help some ladies, and get a cool shirt in the process.

Since tomorrow is Halloween, and I don’t plan on doing any updating then, I figured I’d be a nice music-giving individual, and hook y’all up with some free mp3s of everyone’s favorite act ’round this time of year. That’s right- the Misfits. And I mean the original Misfits, when Danzig was singing.

Ghoul’s Night Out
Where Eagles Dare
Bullet

And lastly, a live version of Kansas City streetpunk act Tanka Ray doing “Hybrid Moments” live on KJHK‘s Plow the Fields program in October of 2000.

Ska-punkers Big D & the Kids Table have made a video for their cover of the Specials’ “Little Bitch.” The song is off their just-released cd How It Goes, out now on Springman Records.

The video is rather nifty, as it features the band drinking a lot of beer, and it’s one seamless take. Very very nice. You’ll need the Quicktime plug-in to view it.

So, Ashlee Simpson‘s debacle on SNL this weekend seems to be the big talk of the day ’round these parts of the Internet.

And, being as how I am your musical maestro ’round here at the MoFo, I figured I’d hook you all up with some clips of the incident, as well as young Miss Simpson’s excuse at the close of the broadcast.

It’s pretty goddamn funny, being as how her band just keeps playing after she walks offstage. They’re pretty damn good, which makes her lameass excuse following the whole thing pretty sad indeed.. Evidently, according to Ashlee, her band “started playing the wrong song”, so she figured she’d do a little hoedown. Right… so, that’s the reason your voice started coming out of nowhere, when the mic was nowhere near your mouth? Nice evasion, girl.