Kill Ugly Radio: Frank Zappa & Elsewhere

Yes indeed:

The Zappa Family Trust will celebrate Independence Day by making Zappa’s “Beat The Boots” series, totaling 148 tracks, for sale online. These will be the only authorized Frank Zappa albums available on iTunes.

Gail Zappa:

Even though the polar caps are melting away at such a horrendous rate we will probably never need boots again except for wading in worse cacadoody than ever, you can finally get these Beat the Boots on iTunes just in time to be reminded of Liberation of another sort on the 4th of July.

Posted in Frank Zappa, In The News, Music | 11 Comments »

Though I haven’t had time to play around with it, Muxtape looks to be loads of fun. I’ll just let the tag line do the talking. Muxtape is:

a simple way to create and share mp3 mixtapes

Have any of you created muxtapes you wish to share? If so feel free to put a link in the comments — after you’re done gazing in awe at my incredibly clever title for this post, of course.

Posted in Music | 21 Comments »

Bless Andy Baio:

These are the unreleased demos from Joni Mitchell’s The Hissing of Summer Lawns, one of my favorite albums ever. Unlike the lush arrangements found on the album, these early versions are stripped down to only piano, and acoustic guitar.

He found this rare recording at Big O Magazine which has a bunch of other interesting things up for download (oh look: Loggins & Messina!). Just try to ignore the Japanese girl with the bouncing boobs to the right, and focus on the left part of the page…

Posted in Music | 12 Comments »

David Byrne’s Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists — and Megastars.

Is this the future present so many people are afraid of?

Byrne’s one of those quirky visionaries and he does have a point. Still, I wonder… Perhaps, first and foremost, this notion whereby the internet will stick around for eternity, providing us with instantly downloadable digital delight, might well be a fantasy. Second: people like to own stuff. This is about tangible goods. Cardboard LP sleeves. Actual, physical CD boxes even.

The internets is a fragile house of cards. What if we come to depend on it for our sole source of music/entertainment? Am I being an old analog fart?

You tell me.

Posted in Music | 13 Comments »