The music industry is in a free fall. The big labels are scrambling to keep up with technology and they’re doing everything from trying to provide their own online services to compete with Apple’s iTunes Store to suing the same people that would be their customers if prices were more resonable. I still believe in buying music, but when I look and see that CDs still cost the same or more than when I was in university more than ten years ago it pisses me off. My favorite artists albums cost a lot because ‘big name stars’ have ridiculous and expensive contracts. As a result I buy online and used CDs and very little new.

Thankfully most of the bands I like are on independent labels¹ and generally have lower prices and more money can go to the artists². One benefit of this is that I can often times buy the albums directly from the artist, thus ensuring that the maximum amount of money makes it into their pocket.

Where is all this leading? Well, recently Radiohead did an online album sale by themselves. Following closely behind them is Saul Williams. I come to know of Saul Williams via his connection with Trent Reznor and his remixes of Nine Inch Nails tracks³. Saul has put out an album, The Inevitable Rise And Liberation Of NiggyTardust! that is online for free if you want. If you pony up five measly dollars you’ll get a higher bit-rate or uncompressed version, your choice. Needless to say it wasn’t hard for me to decide to drop $5 directly to the artist to get an album.

Quite a few people I talked to about Niggy Tardust were reluctant to try it because they thought it might be too much rap or hip-hop. I ended up loving the album. It’s produced by Trent Reznor and Trent ends up singing on a few tracks. From start to end the album flows and is lyrical in the way I love. If you like NIN and you aren’t abject to trying the online music thing you should give it a spin and then if you like it I suggest you buy it.

1. not in the big RIAA piss-pot↩
2. I’m not saying it always does, but it can.↩
3. By the way, NIN now has an official remix site up and running with a lot of cool tracks on it.↩

Sometimes you hit on a song that will make you want to buy an entire album. “What’s A Girl To Do?” from Bat For Lashes has done that for me. To bad I have to wait a couple of weeks to buy it here in the USA. It’s also a great video, I love the bunny-hopping masked BMXers (notice how responsible everyone is with a light on their bike!).

(via How to Avoid a Bummer Life)

I’ve been listening to Lagwagon’s
latest album
Resolve for about two weeks now. In all of href="http://lagwagon.com/disco/disco.html">Lagwagon’s discography
I have to say this is their best album since Hoss.

The inspiration for this album is the suicide of their original drummer,
Derrick Plourde. There
is a lot of emotion in the songs. On the last song,
“Days of New,” Joey sings “Hey, Derrick!” and I almost loose it because
you can just feel the emotion that went into making an album to Derrick
and that he is missed.

I find it hard to put this album down. I listen to some stuff in between
but I keep queuing this one up in it’s entirety. This is a darker album
that the last couple from Lagwagon, but with the subject matter one
would expect that to be the case. If you like Lagwagon at all I can’t
recommend this album enough.

Take one part Green Day American
Idiot (which is one of the best albums to come around in a long time)
and add a bunch of samples and an editor named Dean Gray and you get a
well done mash-up album: American
Edit

I’ve been listening to it this afternoon and there’s some very inventive
mixing in there. I like it so far.

I wonder how long it will be allowed to stay up before some rights holder
gets their knickers in a twist. Well, I’ve got it now, so I can keep listening
to it.

It’s been a while since I got new music and based on some recommendations
from my best friend when I was href="http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2004/12/08#texas-december-2004">in Texas
I picked up a few things used.

• My Chemical Romance
  – Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. This album is one of the best
  I’ve gotten in a long time. I guess you could put it in the emo group, but
  it’s got a bit of spookiness in there too. Just really good stuff and easy to
  listen to.
• H.I.M. — Greatest Love
  Songs, Vol. 666. While I’m not normally into Gothic Rock from Finland
  this one is surprisingly easy to listen to and has two great covers on it:
  “Wicked Game” and “Don’t Fear the Reaper.” I can’t say more other than
  the original songs are good too, but those covers make it worth the cost.
• Hayseed Dixie –
  A Hillbilly Tribute to AC/DC. Yeah, it was used and I couldn’t resist.
  The covers (all of them AC/DC) are great. That’s what I love in covers, when
  they’re totally different from the original but still carry some hint of the
  inspiration.

I also picked up the Nirvana Box Set while in Texas, but I haven’t had a chance
to really give it a listen yet. I’ll post a review of that when I feel
more comfortable with it.

As anyone knows me I love music. Hence it should be no surprise that I’ve
gotten even more recently.

• Rise Against – Siren Song of the
  Counter Culture. Okay, Rise Against put out an album last year,
  Revolutions Per Minute. Honestly, it was my href="http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2003/12/31/">album of the year for
  2003. I still listen to it all the time because it’s just that good. Their
  new album, Siren Song of the Counter Culture is also a fantastic album,
  but I tell you, it’s hard to beat Revolutions. While spinning this
  album for a while I realize it would be a prenominal album if Revolutions
  had never come out, but it did and now we have more good stuff to
  listen to.
• Pretty Girls Make
  Graves – Good Health and The New Romance. This band
  is just supper solid. Sort of along the lines of Le Tigre and
  Sleater-Kinney in that they all have female singers and play similar styles
  of music, PGMG is a super solid and plays well for me in the background
  while I’m working. Everyone I’ve played them for has loved the sound
  immediately.
• Alkaline Trio – From Here to
  Infirmary and Good Mourning. I really used to love Alkaline Trio,
  then right before Infirmary came out something turned off for me so I
  skipped getting their last two albums. This year I got the
  
  Alkaline Trio/One Man Army Split. I immediately fell in love with the
  work of both bands on the split. That caused me to re-thing not having all of
  the Alk3 albums. I’m glad I decided to pick them up (besides being a
  completist) because Infirmary is good but Mourning is great.
  It’s right up there with the work on the split and has been very easy for
  me to listen to. The video for “We’ve Had Enough” is also really good (see
  the mention about the Rock Against Bush album below
• Less Than Jake – B is for
  B-sides. LTJ took 12 songs from the href="http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2003/05/24#mall-n-music">Anthem
  sessions and put out a whole new album. It’s short but very good. It is LTJ,
  what more could one expect. I’m just blown away that they had enough
  material to release another album from just the recording of one.
• Various Artists – Rock Against Bush
  Vol. 2. Another in the series. While all the music is great and
  a nice cheap buy the winning aspect of this disc is that it comes with a
  bonus DVD. On the DVD is a performance of Will Ferrell as George Bush and
  several music videos by bands like Alk3, Flogging Molly, and Bad Religion.
  All in all yet another great comp from Fat Wreck.

It’s actually been a while since I got any new music so I did a big purchase
(and of course there is already more stuff to get, but I’ll wait for the next
several things to come out). And now, on with the show:

• 
  Coheed and Cambria: The Second Stage Turbine Blade and In
  Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3
  Where have I been these last two years? These guys are amazing. I love that
  they’ve got a concept that will span four albums and these two are #2 and #3
  respectively. The singer has a high pitched voice and more than one person
  has likened him to Getty Lee of Rush and while similar he’s not the same at
  all. The music is good to listen too and has several catchy songs. I mean
  how can you not like a band with a singer/song writer with such href="http://www.coheedandcambria.com/images/co.ca5.jpg" title="go Claudio">
  great hair. Right now I’m really digging these guys while I’m working
  out. Check out their videos.
• Swingin’ Utters: Live in A Dive
  Well, I love these guys. href="http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2004/07/19#utters-slims-2" title="great
  show">The last show I saw by them was excellent. This live recording
  is no exception. A good mix of old and new and well mixed this I will
  enjoy listening to for a long time to come.
• 
  Alexisonfire: Watch Out!
  I had heard of this band here and there, but never heard them. My friend
  Matt suggested I give them a listen as usual he’s right on (we have near
  identical tastes in music). I will admit the album took a little bit to
  grow on me, but now that it has I like it. There are definitely points where
  I’m glad the singer sings instead of the screamer screaming.
• Only
  Crime: To the Nines
  Take several of the best musicians in punk rock today from bands like Good
  Riddance, Hagfish, Bane, and The Descendents/All and you get Only Crime.
  Because Russ Rankin is the singer there are many direct parallels to Good
  Riddance, but the music is much different in a good way. For hard rocking
  punk this album is a must have. It’s also good work out music.
• Tiger Army:
  III: Ghost Tigers Rise
  Tiger Army, how I love you. With this third release Tiger Army shows no
  signs of slowing down. Some of the songs are a little slower than one might
  expect, but overall the album is solid and has a lot of energy and great
  song writing that we’ve come to expect from the Army. If you like psychobilly
  then you’ll want this release in your catalogue.
• Subhumans:
  Live in A Dive
  Yet another in the Live in a Dive series. Again, Fat Wreck does not
  disappoint. While I’ve heard the Subhumans in the past I got into punk
  in the era post them. Slowly I’ve been picking up older stuff and this
  album is a great addition since it’s well mastered and a good mix (a “best of”
  if you will). Definitely a buy for anyone that likes the Subhumans.
• Bad
  Religion: The Empire Strikes First
  What more can one say about these legends of punk? Not much except that this
  album is great and spot on exactly what I’d expect from them. They did
  manage to release a couple of albums in the 90s that are just not recommended at all,
  but that’s all over now (and has been over for the last couple of albums).
  Bad Religion will rock your lame ass, believe it.
• Sparta:
  Porcelain
  A sophomore effort from some of the members of At the Drive-In. This album
  is solid but I will admit I haven’t given it enough listens to really
  embrace it yet. I liked it on the first couple of listens so it’s going
  to fall into regular rotation now.

So, last Friday my friend dode and I had decided to see a href="http://www.swinginutters.com/" title="$wingin' Utter$">Swingin’ Utters
show at Slim’s.
The show was part of the Rock Against Bush tour. We got there in time to see
The Reducers
SF play and then the Swingin’ Utters.

When the Utters came out I saw they had a different person on rhythm guitar.
Now normally this wouldn’t be to strange since they’ve had a few of them
since Max Huber left (or at least it seems that way). This time however the
guitarist looked familiar, and then I pinned down who it was before they
mentioned his name. It was Jack from href="http://www.byorecords.com/bandpage.php?band=onemanarmy" title="OMA @ BYO">
One Man Army (official site which
seems down). I know, double-eww tee eff, right? My only wish is that my
friend the
rotomonkey was already living out here because I know he would have enjoyed
it. By far it was the best Swingin’ Utters show I’ve ever seen, hands down.
Oh well, there will be more once he’s finally out here.

This weekend I was listening to some music by href="http://www.alkalinetrio.com/mainsite.html" title="Alkaline Trio">Alkaline
Trio and
Tiger Army. My roommate asked if either band was Morrissey. At that point I
totally heard the similarity, but up until that point I had never made a
connection. Now, I’m not a huge Morrissey fan. I like his music but I don’t
own any nor listen to it (in fact it may have been several years since I last
heard any Morrissey). I’m just wondering, does this make me a closet Morrissey
fan? I’m sure that Alkaline Trio (punk) and Tiger Army (psychobilly) have some
influences from Morrissey, but I don’t know that I would necessarily like him
on a regular basis that much. I guess I’m just really surprised at the
connections one can make with more and more knowledge packed into your noodle.

I just had to share these delightfully dark lyrics from href="http://1manarmysf.com" title="OMA">One Man Army.

The Hemophiliac

I used to think myself lucky maybe a little unkind
I caught something contagious by you
It all starts with an itch that always burns me
when i hold you it makes my nose bleed
and when we kiss I feel it deep inside
like the first time you left me here to die
I wake up every morning by you
a silence on your lips so loud
and your skin such a pretty blue
you got nothing to worry about
nights to lay around
nobody to touch you
but me cause i'm allowed