I'll drink whiskey instead of water

I saw Murder By Death on Tuesday night for the 2nd time. Although they put on a great show, it wasn't quite as great as I remember. This may be because their last tour was in support of their sophomore album Who Will Survive and What Will Be Left of Them?, which is simply fantastic from start to finish. Since then they have put out 2 more albums, In Bocca Al Lupo and Red of Tooth and Claw - both have some similarly depressing, cello-guided rock songs, but just don't seem to hold together as well. On the other hand, Who Will Survive... remains a cohesive collection of songs about the devil, whiskey, desert towns, the old times, and "murder by death," sung by a modern-day Johnny Cash. "The Devil in Mexico" kicks off the album and sets the overall lyrical narrative of the devil's revenge after his attempted murder in a bar - "well the devil's bleedin crude oil from a hole in his chest/and its panging on the bedpan drippin through the bedsheets/and all the businessmen are putting pails beneath his wounds/and pawnin the oil at the market." Check out anything Murder By Death does, but this is a great place to start.

Murder By Death - The Devil in Mexico
Murder By Death - Until Morale Improves, The Beatings Will Continue
Murder By Death - A Masters In Reverse Psychology

from Who Will Survive and What Will Be Left of Them?
buy vinyl or CD

Record Store Day 2009

Today is Record Store Day, with artists releasing a bunch of limited and exclusive material in independent record stores across the country. Check out here and here for more information. I just picked up the Obits' single "I Can't Lose" / "Military Madness" 7". Go buy some vinyl!

Teenage angst has paid off well, now I'm bored and old

I've been pretty busy, so this is almost a week old now, but 15 years have passed since I watched the news of Kurt Cobain's death on MTV. It seems incredible to me that so much time has passed. I am often turned off by hype and exaggeration of greatness, but Kurt Cobain is my one exception - if anything, his talent isn't talked about enough (with the exception of each April), or the praise confined to the narrow sphere of "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Kurt's premature death has resulted in his untainted image and memory, reaching almost mythical heights, but that does not discount his incredible ability to produce music that was both lyrically brilliant and emotionally charged.

Here are some of my favorites:

Nirvana - Serve the Servants
from In Utero
buy

Nirvana - Drain You
from Nevermind
buy

And as a 5th grade fan of Nirvana, cover songs and Kurt's name-dropping were my gateway to some of my now favorite bands: Meat Puppets, Vaselines, Wipers, Young Marble Giants, etc. So, here are some of my favorite cover songs:

Nirvana - Molly's Lips (Vaselines cover)
from Incesticide
buy

Nirvana - Plateau (Meat Puppets cover)
Nirvana - Where Did You Sleep Last Night? (Lead Belly) - kind of cliche to say this, but the ending of this song makes this possibly my favorite performance of any song ever
from MTV Unplugged in New York
buy

We got two dollar soldiers and ten dollar words

Joe Pug is a singer-songwriter who released The Nation of Heat EP in 2008 and plans to start recording his debut full-length sometime this year. He recently performed some songs on My Old Kentucky Blog's LaundroMatinee Video Session - the performances are fantastic, as is the Nation of Heat EP. If you are a fan of Bob Dylan, AA Bondy, or any other singer-songwriters who actually have something to say, I highly recommend checking out his music.


Joe Pug - Nation of Heat from LaundroMatinee on Vimeo.

Check out the rest of Joe Pug's performance here.

MP3's
Joe Pug - Nation of Heat
from the Nation of Heat EP
buy

Joe Pug - Hymn #101 (live Daytrotter Session)
download the rest