I’ve lived in the suburbs of Washington DC since I was 12 years old. Almost 20 years. That’s a long time for anyone that lives in a town that has more turn over then a whore house outside of Las Vegas. And the awesome thing about living here is that it has such a great history of fucking awesome music. Emmy Lou Harris and Marvin Gaye cut their teeth in this town. Upper class white kids from Northwest created Hardcore here and Chuck Brown invented Go-Go music (sort of) and made a career playing music soley in the DMV area. But you know what has never come out of this town, a fucking good Hip Hop artist. That is until now. Read the rest of this entry »

I was driving past the Gothic Theater’s marquis the other day and noticed that Barcelona was playing.  I had never heard of them and couldn’t go to the show (we only get paid 80 cents a month here at misikal) but I liked their name, pure and simple.  It’s like when people tell you not to judge a book by its cover.  Well I do, and that goes for band names too.  Read the rest of this entry »

I’d like to say that my interst in music has made me a better artist and musician. I have always loved to know how records are made and soemtimes you find music to fall in love with because they are created using ingenuity rather then a nice budget and lush studio magic. So I was reading the most recent issue of Tape Op yesterday and I flipped to an article about this dude david andrew strackany who plays under the moniker Paleo. Starting 4*16*2006 and ending on 4*15*2007 Mr. Strackany decided to write and record a song a day, often while on tour across the country in whatever situtation he was abel to. He managed to succeed to do this some how and it’s quite astonishing the results. It seems he spent a good amount of time in Washington DC so I decided to download all the Washington DC songs (as well as one song called “Love with an Illegal which he recorded in Brooklyn, NY - I liked the title). The songs are for the most part, mellow, drowny, and his sad sad voice lull you into the simple music. Often it’s the sounds of just guitar and his voice present and they ll sound like demos made on a computer.

Currently, inspired by this project he is recording a new song a week titled “Sunday Prayer”. Each one is marked in the roman numeral to mark the chronology. So rare do we find artists who are commited not just to the product, but to the art of the process. Paleo is such an artist and his accomplishment warrants a bit of your time. Find some titles you like and just go for it.

Tabor lets me live another day. Who knew you could get a gig being a slack ass and not get fucked with. It’s kinda bad ass. So this week I’m just gonna throw some shit out at you really quick like, Cuz there is some shit I am getting into these days that’s kinda bad ass.

First of all, if you aren’t listening to Good Luck these days then yr fucking yr life up. Read the rest of this entry »

On Saturday, over a period of 6 hours, we received a total of 14 spam comments. We could’ve had porn, Viagra, and refinancing schemes coming out of our ears, but I chose the high road, and threw that shit away. Unfortunately, as I frothed at the mouth while giving my pointer finger repetitive stress syndrome, I managed to delete some legitimate comments. For a blog that gets all of three reader comments a fucking week, this is bad news.

If I actually managed to keep the back end updated with the latest version of Wordpress, maybe I’d be able to recover these tomes of wisdom. As it is, I still have “WordPress 2.6 is available” screaming at me every time I log on to hack out the rotting, wrinkled, stinking and altogether idiotic spam. I mean, really, who in their right mind would use a list of links that say nothing but “adult” to find their latest tossing material?

As irritating as it is, the whole spam business reminds me of what this blog is actually about; music. Someone says it every year, and now it’s my turn; music has sucked lately. Of course, I’m ignoring the elephant that is Music For Animal’s tour, Islands’ release of The Arm, or The Shredding Tear’s second album. Three elephants, one elephant, I’m ignoring them all, for one reason.

This.

Yes. I don’t really have to say much about it. The song manages to wander so far into the territory of bands started in eigth grade (that practiced once and was cut short when Jimmy’s mom came to pick him up at eight) that I really could just sit back and laugh.

Let me tell you something. If you’re enjoying this kind of packaged rebellion with any kind of repetition, you are a moron. Katy Perry has never released anything that wanders far from the comfortable realm of sexuality. Now, I’ve got nothing against songs about sex. Being a fan of it, I’m not really allowed to make that kind of general statement anyway. But when musicians can be guaranteed fame by oozing a steady stream of singles like “Ur So Gay” and “I Kissed A Girl”, there is something seriously wrong with the consumers.

After a few minutes of scowling, I finally decided that it’s simply because the lowest common denominator is a whole lot lower than our parents and teachers wanted us to believe. In so many words; people are retarded.