An odd week for new music but with some interesting surprises including new music from David Byrne, Neil Young, Cloud Nothings, Slow Coast, The Blindfold Experience, Huntertones, Annahstasia, Japanese Breakfast, New Candies and much more. Enjoy!
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Did it rain on his parade? I'm sure 10's of people enjoyed it. I notice that at all of the "No Kings" events nationwide that the only arrests made for anything violent were 100% Republican. We gotta find a way to keep these violent people away from public events.
So how did the shooter in Minnesota get access so easily to politicians homes? He was dressed like a cop. More than anything else, it seems to me that this says as much about how we expect cops to act as it does about the shooter himself.
The new/old guy's kids announced a new phone service, and while you can use your current phone if you switch over, they will also give you the option to get a new phone. Someone I know looked into it and the phone in question is the same device as the T-Mobile REVVL 7 Pro 5G, with custom (gold) body. That means it's made in China.
I notice that military personnel are starting to refer to Secretary Hogsbreath as "Secretary Jägermeister". I'm happy to use that one. And by the way, it's sad that a single tank can squeak louder than the "crowd" watching it go by.
Why is Alex Jones still on the air? HOW is that asswipe still on the air?
I was this many days old when I learned that there is an official, government-approved Spanish Language version of The Star Spangled Banner.
So far the new/old guy isn't representing us very well at the G7. Maybe it's the BOLO issued tongue-in-cheek looking for a man with 34 criminal convictions.
My beach, yesterday:
And by the way, kudos to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney for having a way to make the new/old guy shut the hell up, and using it.
I doubt this means that the deportations will stop, but ICE has used up all of it's annual budget already, and is overbudget by nearly $1 Billion.
In ruling against the new/old guy, Massachusetts District Judge William Young asks, "Have we suck so low? Have we no shame?" Yes, then no.
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And because I love you, we celebrate one of the greatest pop songs ever written.
Great new music this week from Vistas, Monkey House, Sweet Emergarde, Turnstile, Prince, Cypress Hill, beaux, Comet Gain, Moptop and much more. Enjoy!
I only discovered Vistas this past week, and what a discovery this has turned out to be. Really, you should check them out.
Monkey House looks to be attempting to wrest the "Next Steely Dan" title away from everyone else, and it's a pretty good effort.
The Cypress Hill album is the long-teased concert with the London Philharmonic. I've played previously released tracks from this before but now the whole album/concert is available and it's every bit as awesome as you'd think.
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Things I've learned over the weekend:
Waymo driverless cabs are actually surveillance vehicles.
Apparently 6 blocks of Los Angeles on the news is the same as 467 square miles. And dear god Los Angeles is on fire!
Governor Gavin Newsome remembered where he had packed away his spine.
Doctor Phil participated in the ICE raids in Los Angeles. This means that there is more film footage out there than we have seen.
That the new/old guy might have called up and Federalized the National Guard because everyone else is converging on Washington D.C. for a parade. You know, in addition to the whole fascism thing.
I did a lot of posting this past week on various social media sites and only once was I called out on my stance that ICE should be abolished. On tumblr.
To become an ICE field agent requires 14 months of training, including 3-4 months at FLETSI. We are all of 5 1/2 months into this administration, so that means all of those masked fascist thugs are contractors.
You know, whatever the Blackwater Motherfuckers are calling themselves these days.
I've watched the footage of the Australian reporter getting shot with a rubber bullet to the leg and I can say with certainty that not only was the person who shot her not in any danger that he deliberately targeted her. You can see him do it in the footage. I wish I were confident that he will be brought up on charges.
Multiple accounts on Xitter owned by ICE/Homeland Security etc. showed pallets of bricks, calling them proof that either George Soros was behind the protests in L.A. or that violence was at hand. Given that all the raids took place at Home Depot stores I am personally under the opinion that these people have no fucking what Home Depot sells.
Apparently protesting and flying a Mexican flag is bad optics, per a couple of posts I've seen. Dudes, this is Los Angeles. Might as well ask the people not to fly pride flags in San Francisco or Brazilian flags during the World Cup.
Or as Cheryl Ann Lee called it on Bluesky, "This is very much like telling Black Americans that we should protest in suits and ties instead of jeans and hoodies so that racists will respect us. It does not work. We wore our Sunday best and they turned firehoses on us and still called us beasts and savages. Call us savages to this day."
You know, don't give them the pretext to do what they're already doing.
The new/old guy apparently thinks it costs $2.00 to fly to California from Washington D.C. and that's why we can't have high-speed rail.
And his social media posts apparently time-travel? At least the one he posted about the success of the Marines sent into Los Angeles the day before they were sent?
ICE was deployed to the library in Whitter, CA today (where Richard Nixon went to college) which by some strange coincidence was the start of the summer reading program for children.
That the current Secretary of Defense thinks you can deploy the National Guard without also deploying logistics teams so that they have bedding, shelter, and food.
That every crisis that the current administration is reacting to is imagined. None of it was/is real. There is no immigrant invasion. No trade crisis. No scientific or governance crisis. Just people completely high off their own supply trying to fundamentally reorder society.
I lived in Los Angeles during the Rodney King riots. What we've been seeing are nowhere close to that. Tom Homan said yesterday that someone is going to get killed. I think that's what they want.
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And because I love you and because music can be joyous, I give you one of my favorite songs from childhood by the great Sly Stone:
New music this week from Peach Fuzz, Ben Caplan, John Fogerty (sort of), Ministry (also sort of), Wet Leg, Lorde, Sunsick Daisy, Ty Segall, Garbage, Moptop, KennyHoopla, Beth Sarah and much more. Enjoy!
A couple of notes about this week's music starting with John Fogerty. Earlier this year he finally, finally, was able to get the rights to all of the music he wrote during the Credence days back. What happened to him is a cautionary tale to any songwriter - but for 50 years people made money off his work and he didn't get a dime. That has finally been fixed.
Fogerty has been re-recording his Creedence Clearwater Revival catalogue with his sons as the backing band, and he's going to start releasing them as "John's Version" - the first of which came out this week. This includes my favorite CCR song, "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?" but also included a song I didn't even know, which I've added to the playlist this week. More to come. I hear through the grapevine (I see what you did there) that he actually lobbied his record label to call these re-recording "Taylor's Version" but the idea was shot down.
That would have been hilarious.
You will also see the same sort of thing happening with Ministry. When they evolved into an Industrial/Noise Metal band I really didn't follow along - I much preferred their synth-pop work from their early days. Well they too have re-recorded some of their old catalog (including "Every Day is Halloween") and are calling it "The Squirrely Years". This gives me the excuse to add a couple of my favorite Ministry songs to the playlist and call it new music.
My playlists, my rules.
Finally, it's worth your time to check out the back catalog of the band Moptop. The new album they have coming soon will be in English, but this is their 5th album - they're from Brazil and their previous albums are of course in Portuguese. Get past the language barrier - they're a good alt-pop band, and like I said, their new material is in English and if I hadn't told you that they're from South America you'd have never noticed.
As I always say, there is great music out there, but you need to search for it. That's what I do.
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Dan Bongobongo (or whatever the fuck his name is) was hired as Deputy Director of the FBI, and now he's been bitching to his TV and Radio/Podcast friends that it's a difficult job. No shit, Sherlock.
We've put a bunch of Monday Morning Quarterbacks in charge of real work, and all of a sudden they're discovering that they're not qualified (or worse think that they are) and that the job of being an actual quarterback is fucking hard. Hey, if they could actually do the hard work they wouldn't have been on Television in the first place.
Does anyone out there know what trauma Governor Gavin Newsom has experienced that has made him swing so far right these past few months? If it turns out that he's only doing it as an opportunistic grab towards a Presidential bid I will be greatly disappointed. Although I don't wish him harm and prior to now he's been a good Governor, it's the only explanation I would find acceptable.
Therapy Gavin. Seek therapy, please.
Because if it's the other thing I will point out that the Left doesn't win by heading towards the center. It's the Center that wins when they swing Left. It's not the Clinton years anymore.
Look, it's never been a secret that Elon Musk is a stoner. Why does everyone get all up in arms about it? He smokes pot all the time - it is well documented - and his use of Special K is pretty well established as well.
I love it when Republicans get pissed off about Democrats using the same tactics that they've been using for years. "It’s got to be hard to keep track of your political positions when you have no moral center and just attach yourself to the most powerful person in the room."
I will also add that it must be tough to get into the Heaven you keep raving about when you bear false witness so very goddamned much.
As frustrating as it is that the media isn't doing a damned thing to point out that the new/old guy is clearly in mental decline, it's even more frustrating to admit that they reason they're doing it is that they are far more scared of the idea of a President Vance.
I don't eat popcorn, but I do admit that the sudden civil war between the new/old guy and Leonard Leo is pretty entertaining.
What happened in Colorado last week is terrible, and yes it is a hate crime and even possibly terrorism. So what are you calling what's happening in Gaza right now?
Bravo to Ukraine for pulling off the attack of the decade (so far) with the demolition of so much of Russia's Air Force, so far away from the border the two countries share. Whatever your position on the war is, you must admit that this was pulled off with Jack Ryan precision and accuracy.
You know, for a political party that made its bones on the idea that government should have no say in how we raise our children the Republican Party sure seems to want to have a fuckton of control over how we raise our children.
