MOG

It’s the end of yet another month, and time for me to write about the set of tunes that somehow connected with my brain and inspired me to add them to the April 2007 playlist.

Dealing with Demons by The Shake Bop bop bop bop very Cardigans sounding rock pop stuff from Helsinki’s The Shake… nice gruff vox over top of poppy riffs and ringing tambourine beats…. Let’s hope that Scarlet Johansen sounds half as sexy when her album hits the streets…

Bullshit City by The Chuck Norris Experiment Once there was a band from Oslo called Gluecifer and they were great, they were the more straight ahead Rock and Roll part of the great Nordic Rock Invasion of the 1990’s (See also; Turbonegro, The Hellacopters, and The Flaming Sideburns)…Gluecifer is no more, but Sweden has offered up a group to fill their slot in the invasion force… The Chuck Norris Experiment… Bullshit City is a straight ahead AC/DC style rock blast that will have you shaking your first in the air and chanting along… Do you know where you are?

Follow the Zombies by Bang Sugar Band Melodic punk rock, with pointed lyrics about conformity what’s not to like…. We’ll get back to these guys in a bit…

End of the World by Zombina & The Skeletones

Is that Tony Iommi playing that opening riff…. Am I dating myself throwing his name out there.. the guitar is classic Black Sabbath riffage and then the keyboards come in like a zephyr and the bass starts throbbing and before you know it the lyrics are chanting ‘Everybody is gonna die’ over and over and it’s all a glorious mess of classic metal, pop and ragged power punk…. What else could you want from a tune called the end of the world?

Bloody Story by The Forbidden Dimension A new track from The Forbidden Dimension is always a treat…. This track sounds like it should have been on their great album Somebody Down there Likes Me… which makes me even more excited about a new album from them. Sonically this track is more garage rock sounding then their past efforts with just a bit of blues guitar and even a sitar riff thrown in…. I can’t wait for more !

The Machine Gun Song by Bang Sugar Band I told you we’d get back to these guys… starting off with a nice jangly guitar part The Machine Gun Song is more punky power pop screaming sweetly about frustrations..

Evil Woman by Black Sabbath Speaking of the king of blasting metal riffs Tony Immoi, I finally got hooked on the obscure first Black Sabbath tune Evil Woman… it’s a cover of a MN band called Crow, and it’s got just that swagger, like Sabbaths later tune The Wizard… Prime heavy rock, back before there was a dress code and approved sound.

Holiday in Cambodia by The Dead Kennedys I go to work everyday knowing that this company, one in which I was really interested in making a career with has made it clear that there is no real interest in developing or promoting me….I soooo understand this song so much better with what I am going though a work…. Only three more months left on my lease and it’s time to move on…

Roky Mountain Sidegates by The Flaming Sideburns This song is just soooo classic rock in so many ways, and none of them seem to be simple enough for me to just say, oh they are ripping this off here and quoting that there, but it’s like it’s on the tip of my tongue. Man with Golden Helmet? Very intriguing..

Stranger than Fiction by Bad Religion Driving melodic and literate this just stomps along marching on the path to questioning this world that we live in and maybe our desire for order and happy endings…..

Chick Habit by April March Yes I saw Grindhouse at the theater, and I liked Death Proof… that’s where I heard this tune and fell for it. It’s perfectly retro, a bit of French lounge, and bubbling throbbing strings, with a super sweet voice punctuated only by the flairs of what sound like horns…. Anyone anyone…

Jawbreaker (Love Theme from the Cincinnati Rollergirls) by Pike Punk girls on roller skates knocking into each other? Of course that sounds like fun to me… yet I haven’t made it out to any of the local roller derby matches…. This tune is perfect for that settinåg, it’s got that ultra sweet pop vox and punky velocity wall of crashing cymbals.. tough, sexy and infectious… and the bass is right out of what am I hearing? The Dead Kennedys California Uber Allas??

Halo of Ashes by The Screaming Trees Was I the only one floored by that last episode of Battlestar Galacatia, with the All Along the Watchtower with that driving Sitar?? For some reason this tune reminds me of that it’s the propelling beat, the thumping bass and the ringing …. Well Sitar, that builds and builds… let me tell you the real thing that put this tune on the list this month, it’s that I was listening to it on my iPod and I could hear that Sitar so clearly and so propulsivly that I had to play it and play it… even now as I listen to it again, this time on my computer (with pretty good auxiliary speakers even) I can only kinda hear the magic that I heard with the earbuds…. Still a great song, from a great album that should have been so much bigger than it was…. But I’m not saying anything that I haven’t gone on and on and on about before….

So there it is another month and another set of tunes..