New music this week from Starbenders, Big Wreck, Social Distortion, The Intersphere, American Football, Nothing, Suzi Quatro, Sub-Radio, Bruno Mars, GoGo Penguin and so much more. Enjoy!
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The first band I want to bring to your attention is The Intersphere - a band I wish I had discovered three years ago when their album Wanderer came out. I caught on to their new single "Time to Deliver" and was impressed enough to check their back catalog and their album "Wanderer" is a bloody great album. I even added the title track to the playlist. Yes, I know it's not a new song but hey, its my radio station and I can break a rule now and again.
The new album from Starbenders, The Beast Goes On, is worth exploring if you are a classic rock type of listener. Over the course of the past few months almost every song from the album has been released as a single and I've been adding them bit by bit. Check them out.
Big Wreck's "The Rest of the Story" came out at the end on 2025 and is gaining some momentum. It's a hard rocking album with interesting ideas and unexpected grooves that are worth checking out.
Of course I added Social Distortion's new single, "Born to Kill". I'm a Social D fan from way back in the day, and it's looking like they haven't dropped a step in the years since I last saw them $@$#%# years ago.
I'll be honest, I've never really been a fan of Gorillaz. It always seemed to me to be an extreme overreaction by Damon Alburn (lead vocals and primary songwriter) to be different from his work in Blur. The concept of cartoon characters as the members of the band isn't novel - I've used it myself - but they at least do that part well. I have changed my mind about their new album, "The Mountain". It's not the most radio friendly material but it's honest and heartfelt and a great listen. They've also done their visuals proud, with a video that combines THREE of the songs from the album into a single narrative (which I think is a first); "The Mountain" "The Moon Cave" and "Sad God". I've posted the video at the and of this blog entry and it's well worth your time.
I still find the song "Clint Eastwood" boring as hell though.
Suzi Quatro's new single had to be added of course. It's not ground-breaking by any stretch but it's worth remembering that Ms. Quatro is the ORIGINAL heavy rocking front-woman.
The Legal Matters are a power-pop band from the mid-west of the United States and their new album "Lost at Sea" has some real gems. They remind me somewhat of Jellyfish and other bands of that era, but with a 1970's pop flair. They're worth your time.
Finally, I need to address an Elephant in the Room situation, the inclusion of the new song by Gnarls Barkley. CeeLo Green (the group's lead singer) got himself into trouble a few years back (2012) with a sexual assault charge that was eventually reduced and he pled no contest to. That's guilty. He's done his time and served his sentence and apologized, but does that excuse it all? I have no fucking clue and I suspect neither do you. We weren't there. By the same token, some of his public statements from the time are pretty fucking deplorable, and the fact that this is work with Danger Mouse instead of his solo career can be read in a million different ways.
I'm not qualified to judge. It's that simple. Listen to the song, skip it, do as you please. If I didn't know it was CeeLo singing I wouldn't even give adding the song a second thought. The song is pretty good. Is the singer a decent human being? Hell if I know. I'd love to know your thoughts - I could very well be in the wrong for including it and if so, you should call me out on it.
Playlists can be changed.
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Just how much stuff can get thrown at the world in the effort to distract from the Epstein Files?
I mean, we're at war with Iran now, and the man who insisted on getting his own Peace Prize has now instigated more regime changes during his terms than any other President. There's talk of war crimes, running out of defensive missiles, and no real strategy involved here.
But I do notice it was started within hours of the Clintons giving their testimony regarding Epstein, and both of them walking away unscathed while opening up more questions about the old man who just put us on a war footing.
Of course, this has been brewing for a couple of weeks now, as anyone who paid any attention to recent troop movements should have noticed that we moved a fuckton of assets into the region. The fact that some people gambled and won fortunes on the bombings isn't as "insider trading" as you might think, although the fact that a forum to place the bet even exists is troublesome.
You know who is against war in Iran? An awful lot of MAGA. Hell, when he was still alive Charlie Kirk was against it. (Was he silenced? Come on you MAGAfucks, run with it baby!!!!!)
Did you know there was a mass shooting just yesterday, in Austin Texas?
But what I think I'm most disturbed by about these past few days is the normalization of all of this, bust because he managed to kill Supreme Leader Khameni, who had been running Iran for decades. Everybody wanted him gone and welp, he's gone. I'm not sure this changes anything but leadership in many countries have gone on record supporting his "removal".
Folks, the process matters.
Did you know that the State of Kansas, where some of my own family is from, just told all Trans people in the state to turn in their driver's licenses? Identification cards? Birth Certificates? They were never going to stop with the fucking bathrooms.
Oh and by the way, do you have all of your online storage backed up? Lots of the major players have servers in the Middle East. I know of at least one data center run by AWS (Amazon) that has been bombed. And did you know that AWS leases server space to the Israeli military? All I can tell you is that I'm really glad I moved my cloud storage away from AWS years ago.
I think it's also worth pointing out that a whole fuckton of AI computing power is in data centers in the Middle East. Why? Because they were first off the ground with what's called "Hyperscale" buildings that have enormous power usage (enough to power a small city - which is what AI takes) and they had the power available. I notice that several AI platforms have had issues today.
Kuwait shot down three F-15 airplanes belonging to the United States today. We have bases in Kuwait. The pilots all survived fortunately, but in all seriousness this is proof that there is no real plan here. Part of Logistics is coordinating between the various powers involved so that shit like this doesn't happen. Wasn't Hogsbreath a Logistics Officer? Oh yeah, he was just a Captain. And important job - and even vital - but it doesn't train you for stuff like this, and he fired the people who would know.
Just so you know how things can go sideways quickly in ways you can't predict, I have a friend whose father (who lives on the East Coast of the US) goes to Vietnam every few years. It's a long flight and he's getting up in years, but he always goes. And just this weekend he has had to scramble because his connecting flight was in Dubai. He's now flying the other direction. It's a longer flight, but he has no choice now. Thanks to the events of this weekend it's not safe to fly through the Middle East right now.
Didn't think of that, did they?
By the way, does the old man have Shingles? I'd bet a large sum of money that he never got vaxxed for it. Get vaxxed. I did and beyond a sore arm for a couple of days I was fine.
Speaking of unvaccinated people, we may have a real problem now that Measles and Polio are back: no one knows how to treat them. We had eradicated these diseases for long enough that no one gets trained on how to fight it, and Doctors have no experience with it. The ones who knew how are mostly gone, and today's Doctors have never seen it before. If you get Measles the odds are you're going to be mis-diagnosed, just because you'd be your Doctor's first patient with it.
Oh, and do you know who the Crime Administration sent to preside over the UN Security Council today, while everyone else is busy doing war stuff at Mar-A-Lago? Melania. Seriously, Melania. Looks like that "documentary" is gonna need a coda.
Jersey's gotta Jersey: The FUCK ICE Act.
And because I love you and as mentioned above, here is that AMAZING video from Gorillaz:
