mp3

History Of Spiritual Jazz: 1955-2012

In the final hours of Black History Month, I urge you to explore this marathon 12-hour Spiritual Jazz mix compiled by Black Classical. It’s a historical journey of Spiritual Jazz stretching from 1955-2012. This mix originally appeared on NTS Live, an online radio station based in London with studios in Los Angeles, Shanghai, and Manchester.

The catalog features recognized pioneers Sun Ra, John Coltrane, Gil Scott-Heron, Herbie Hancock, and Pharoah Sanders in addition to South African songstress Letta Mbulu and Brazilian percussion genius Airto. The cuts are deep and the mix is a crate diggers paradise.

Magical Mashups

With The Magic iPod anybody can be a good mashup DJ. Simply drag the mid-2000’s hip-hop song across to an available saccharine pop song and you got yourself a bangin’ mashup. Below are few mashups that I liked. But really, this is so magical you’re going to struggle to make any horrible mixes.

Lose Control – Soul Meets Body Mashup

Country Grammar – Complicated Mashup

Laffy Taffy – Misery Business Mashup

(If you download then donate to the ACLU while you’re there)

Call Me A Hole

Call Me A Hole

This Nine Inch Nails/Carly Rae Jepsen mashup is splendid. The juxtaposition is jarring and yet they somehow fit together perfectly. I hate it and love it at the same time.

pomDeter was the original creator of this beauty but it has been pulled from all his accounts so I’m posting it here for your listening enjoyment.

Running With The Devil

This isolated audio track of Running With The Devil, from Van Halen’s début album, is highly entertaining. I found this buried deep on my old laptops hard drive last night so I have no idea where this originally came from (if you know the source tell me in the comments so I can link to it) but I had to share it. You are absolutely right David – the simple life ain’t so simple.



A Very Ween Valentines

Valentine Ween

Ween made their triumphant return after not performing together for over four years and Denver is lucky enough to have had three days worth of reunion shows this Valentines Weekend.

The first night consisted of a whopping 33 songs (Dean promised 94 songs, no repeats, over he weekend). The night also offered a live début of “How High Can You Fly?” You can listen to Friday’s show below.

The second night Ween played a six song acoustic block (tracks 13-18). They also live debuted the songs “Kim Smoltz” and “Transitions”. The band also made a tribute to the late Lemmy Kilmister with a rocking cover of Motörhead’s “Ace of Spades.” Listen to Ween’s Saturday show here:

The final show was a great Valentines Day surprise as well. The set was a total of 31 songs bringing the weekend to an astonishing grand total to 93 songs! Valentines night was made up of a live début of “Israel” and another six-song acoustic set (tracks 14-19). The weekend was topped off with a five song double encore.

Here are some stats from the three-night reunion weekend:
God Ween Satan (1990): 14 songs
Chocolate & Cheese (1994): 13 songs
The Pod (1991): 11 songs
White Pepper (2000): 10 songs
Pure Guava (1992): 8 songs
The Mollusk (1997): 8 songs
B-sides/others: 7 songs
Quebec (2003): 6 songs
Shinola, Vol. 1 (2005): 6 songs
La Cucaracha (2007): 5 songs
12 Golden Country Greats (1996): 4 songs
Covers: 1 song (Motorhead)

The Boognish is Back!

Bang That Head That Doesn’t Bhangra

This was released released way back in 2007 on Wax Audio‘s Mashopolos. However, I heard it for the first time yesterday and it got my toes tapping and head banging so I wanted to post it here. It’s a seamless mashup of Metallica’s “The Four Horsemen” and Panjabi MC’s “Mundian To Bach Ke” and a ton of fun to listen to.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/141848033″ params=”color=78b3e0&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

We Have To Go To A Park And Record The Sound Of Birds Rising

This demo recording of Stevie Nicks playing Rhiannon (also known as the Birds Rising Demo) is spectacular. The sweet voice mixed with the powerful piano playing is a joy. Open you ears to the music, your heart to the feels, and you’ll understand the magic that is Stevie.



Parent-Friendly Kids Music (For Free!)

This weekend I downloaded this new, and free, children’s album For Kids By Kids: Songs From Iowa Rock City from the Iowa City Public Library. The entire family enjoyed listening to it.

For Kids and By Kids mixes moods and musical styles—from roots music, for which Iowa City is known, to punk, polka, folk, hip-hop, and synth-pop. It not only crosses musical genres, but also generations … Dozens of youths appear on For Kids and By Kids, and we hope that the many more who hear this album will be inspired to pick up an instrument, form their own bands, or do something else creative.

All of the songs are original, spanning all types of genres and moods. The lyrics are not condescending, gratingly repetitive, or infantile. I’m sure we’ll be breaking this one out for listens all summer.

Black Rage


In light of the recent events in Ferguson, Lauryn Hill released her powerful song “Black Rage” on SoundCloud last week. She has been performing the song live for years now but it is only recently that she has released a recording of the song. Lauren Hill describes the emotional song as an old sketch that was recorded in her living room (you can hear the voices of children in the background).

Modeled after “My Favorite Things” with with lyrics that cut deep, the piece bring to the forefront not just of the depth of Ferguson’s injustice, but its context. The lyrics can be found below.

BLACK RAGE is founded on two-thirds a person
Rapings and beatings and suffering that worsens,
Black human packages tied up in strings,
BLACK RAGE can come from all these kinds of things.
BLACK RAGE is founded on blatant denial
Squeezed economics, subsistence survival,
Deafening silence and social control.
BLACK RAGE is founded on wounds in the soul!

When the dogs bite
when the beatings
When I‘m feeling sad,
I simply remember all these kinds of things and then I don’t fear so bad!

BLACK RAGE is founded: who fed us self hatred,
Lies and abuse while we waited and waited?
Spiritual treason, this grid and its cages,
BLACK RAGE is founded on these kinds of things.
BLACK RAGE is founded on draining and draining,
Threatening your freedom to stop your complaining.
Poisoning your water while they say it’s raining,
Then call you mad for complaining, complaining.
Old time bureaucracy drugging the youth.
BLACK RAGE is founded on blocking the truth!
Murder and crime, compromise and distortion,
Sacrifice, sacrifice who makes this fortune?
Greed, falsely called progress.
Such Human contortion.
BLACK RAGE is founded on these kinds of things.

So when the dogs bite
And when the ceilings
And when I’m feeling mad.
I simply remember all these kinds of things and then I don’t fear so bad!

Free enterprise, is it myth or illusion?
Forcing you back into purposed confusion.
Black human trafficking or blood transfusion?
BLACK RAGE is founded on these kinds of things.
Victims of violence both psyche and body
Life out of context IS living unGodly.
Politics. politics
Greed falsely called wealth
BLACK RAGE is founded on denial of self!
Black human packages tied in subsistence
Having to justify very existence
Try if you must but you can’t have my soul
BLACK RAGE is made by unGodly control!

So when the dogs bite
When the beatings
And when I‘m feeling sad,
I simply remember all these kinds of things and then I don’t fear so bad!

Scroll to Top