Ohio Players - Fire

Aww hell yes! Let's take it back to '75. The Midnight Special, baby. A little funk for your junk. From the cats that brought us the "Love Rollercoaster", it's the original Ohio Players bringin' us mo' fire!

How you like yo funk?

The Doors - The End

One of the great characters of modern cinema has left us. Dennis Hopper was a brilliant actor and a legendary bastion of the psychedelic '60s. I will remember him for three great films in particular. Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now, and Blue Velvet all left indelible marks on the film industry and for that I send out this majestic performance by The Doors to Mr. Hopper.

Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Bryan Raydio - Pleiades

Here's the video I threw together for Pleiades. Nothing too flash, just a couple pictures spliced in with some Milkdrop again.

More madness next week.

The National - Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks

I was going to post the new Gord Downie video here but after listening to it I just couldn't help but think that it's just watered down Tragically Hip with a weird movie playing. So I picked these guys instead.

The National is probably something you should be listening to again in the relatively near future. They're talented musicians and tend to put thought into their lyrics. The song "Fake Empire" is one of my top songs of the decade. I haven't been able to give the new album much of a listen yet, but the two songs I did listen to, "Little Faith" and this one below, were both super cool. This particular performance isn't their best, but it does a good job of showing them off as passionate troubadours.

They're from the same city as WKRP!

Proper Villains - Big Top

It's been a little while since I had some crazy electro stuff on here. I have no idea who Proper Villains are but this is a lovely little ditty that reminds me of an old Mr. Oizo classic. I love the video too. I'll probably throw some bonus beats on the end of this post to. Yup, I'm gonna do it.

BONUS BEATS!

Funkagenda & Big Ed - Afterclub [Riva Starr Remix]

Dang, Riva Starr is on fire right now.

Rodrigo Y Gabriela - Tamacun

Talk about sweet. Rodrigo Y Gabriela. Nuff said.

Keep practicing everyone.

Urge Overkill - Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon

This has a kind of Spanish rock feel to it, which is sorta loosely mariachi-ish... ya there's no real connection but whatever, this is Urge Overkill performing their five minutes (three in this case) of fame with this sweet tune from the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. You might have to turn the volume up on this one.

Awesome.

Mariachi El Bronx - Slave Labor

Wow. It was Metal Monday last night at El Capitale, and after hearing Skull Fist rock out huge... no, hold on. Those guys kicked ass and took names. Think Fubar crossed with Iron Maiden. Epic insanity. Top show.

So Jarrett was playing some awesome hardcore stuff that I'd never heard before, and it was some guys from California called The Bronx. They sounded like Henry Rollins on speed. Awesome. So then he tells me that they have a side project called Mariachi El Bronx. That's right. Their side project is a freakin' mariachi band. How have I never heard of these guys?

This is what they sound like as The Bronx... awesome.

Santana - Soul Sacrifice

So yesterday was pretty awesome. It was Lawn Fest take one here at the stronghold. Good turnout, but we'll have to kick it up a notch next time. Here's some Santana from the most ridiculous festival ever, Woodstock '69. Note the ridiculous drum solo from Michael Shrieve, who was just 20 at the time. And that Carlos fella on the gee-tar isn't half bad either.

Epic.

Bryan Raydio - Pleiades

The Pleiades is a cluster of stars found in the constellation of Taurus. It's been rumoured that sentient beings from this star system have visited Earth already. Who knows how legit that is but I tried to imagine the journey through the stars from there to here, and how that journey might sound. This is what I came up with. It's probably the quickest song I've ever done from start to finish, only took about a week. This is another upbeat tune, a little more deep and spacey that the others.

NOTE: New link coming soon...

There you have it, enjoy your weekend!

Bryan Raydio - Mostly Awesome

This is the first of the tracks that I recovered off my failed hard drive, and I'm glad that I did, cause I'd been working on it for many long hours and there's just no way I could have re-created it. The working title was "Mostly Awesome" because I came up with a couple cool little percussion lines and then I couldn't think of another name for it, so I'm just gonna leave it as it is. This is considerably more upbeat than the other stuff I've released so far.

NOTE: New link coming soon...

Two down, one to go...

Bryan Raydio - Grinding

So here's the first original release in this day of threes. This is a concept piece, I wanted to make something in FL Studio using only the generic plugins that come with the program, no additional samples or VSTs, with the exception of George Yohng's W1 Limiter, which is a nice little free limiter that gets a really nice sound with very little CPU expenditure.

For those technically inclined, I used DrumSynth for all the percussion, a simple 3x Oscillator for the bass, Sytrus for some chords, FL Keys, FL Slayer, and the DX10 for a couple extra percs. The rest is just some EQing, some reverb, chorus, etc. I just wanted to show that you can make a decent sounding track using the basic materials.

Anyway this is my least exciting release of the three, but check it out anyway. You can't download it yet, but you can give it a listen thanks to SoundCloud.

NOTE: New links coming soon...

Two more on the way...

Green Jellÿ - Three Little Pigs

It's the long weekend here, that means three days off. These 3 Cities played at the Capital last night, and they were great. Three Sheet plays there tonight. It's going to be 30 degrees out today, and I have three new songs I'm going to post later on. It seems all good things come in threes.

This is Green Jellÿ (pronounced jell-o). It's a little rock story about some pigs that you may have heard of before. Coincidentally, these guys put out an album called "333". This is not from that album.

Stay tuned for more fun.

The Beatles - Day Tripper

It's hot out, the Heineken Cup is on, and there's a million things I've got to do today that aren't writing on my blog, so here's the Beatles.

Cheers!

Animal Collective - Summertime Clothes

It's summer. Really. For good this time. I'm sure of it. I'd like to see these guys at a summertime festival show some time. I don't really know much about them except that they're weird and probably fun to watch. Any band called Animal Collective just has to be. They make kooky videos too. Go put on your summer clothes and rock out.

BONUS BEATS!

Fake Blood - Fix Your Accent

Yeah buddy!

Coheed & Cambria - Delerium Trigger

The Franchise went to see Coheed & Cambria last night at the Sound Academy in Toronto. He had a ticket for me and sadly I still couldn't make it to Ontario to see it. This has been a recurring theme for me, I've previously had tickets for ridiculous bands I won't even mention (Tool was one) only having to miss out for various reasons. As I'm currently vigorously planning my overtaking of the world, I'm hoping that this will never happen again.

The good news is that after three months of work and waiting for parts, I have finally successfully repaired my old failed hard drive and restored countless hours of awesomeness that will soon be released upon the electronic universe to change everything. The anticipation is killing me.

I digress. Coheed & Cambria are awesome. One of my favourite bands ever, easily top 10, and this song might be my favourite of theirs. This is from their DVD "The Last Supper" which was taken from the Hammerstein Ballroom, and it's awesome.

Sorry I missed it Patrick, the next show's on me.

How To Destroy Angels - The Space In Between

And now for something completely different... How To Destroy Angels. Think it sounds a bit like Nine Inch Nails? That's because it mostly is. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are the producers and Mariqueen Maandig (Trent's wife, by the way) is the singer. The first single was "A Drowning", this is the second. Besides the other obvious similarity, the vocal style reminds me of Massive Attack. Mild warning: the video is a bit bloody-ish.

A little odd, but intriguing.

Hank Jones - In A Sentimental Mood

Suresh let me know that Hank Jones passed away on Sunday. Hank was nearly 92 so this wasn't a big shock, but he's gone elsewhere just the same. For those into jazz, the man was a piano legend who played with all of the greats of the 20th century. Still performing at Monterey as recently as 2006, he had smooth, almost magical, style. For those not into jazz, sit down with a glass of your favourite vino and give this a listen, it just might change your mind.

And you should probably check this out too.

Tenacious D - Dio

One of the classic hard rock / metal singers has left us. Ronnie James Dio took over where Ozzy left off in Black Sabbath, and then rocked on in his own band Dio. Memorable tracks like "Die Young" and "Holy Diver" kick ass and take names even to this day. We also have him to thank for everyone and their dog (me included) doing the devil's horns thing with our hands any time there is a camera in our face. One of the bigger fans of Ronnie is Jack Black, half of the great Tenacious D. I therefore see it as appropriate to say goodbye to the man with this stirring tribute from the D.

He also rocked out with the D in this track.

Alien Ant Farm - Attitude

For some reason I just started singing this song in the car last night. Haven't heard it in ages and at one time it was among my favourite tunes. Not really sure what happened to Alien Ant Farm, but at some point later on I'll take a look see.

Might need to do a 2010 remake.