Hey guys, check this out.  I just discovered this great punk band.  They're called the Vandals.  Seriously, I just happened upon them.  Holy crap, they are awesome.  They're from southern California, I think.  Their drummer's pretty decent, he's named Josh or something.

Their Fear of a Punk Planet album is, ya know, kinda rockin'.  It has this song about Farrah Fawcett dying... wait, didn't she just, like, die for real?  There's a cool one about some Vietnamese girl.  Oh my God, they're parodying a tune from Grease?  How utterly wacky!

And there's this song called "Anti."  Oh boy, this track is just balls out.  I wonder if any song in all of recorded history has ever rocked as hard as this one.

Hear "Anti" on YouTube.

(This is obviously a sarcasm-riddled post for the 2 or 3 people who read this thing somewhat regularly.  If you happened upon this entry directly, I've posted a cubic assload of Vandals songs here, including several from Punk Planet.  It's just that "Anti" was just posted to YouTube, and that's probably my favorite track from that record.  I wonder genuinely if any song in all of recorded history has ever rocked as hard as this one.)

I've talked about this terrific Boingo tune before.  I once performed it live with the Songfight band Octothorpe, but at the time the studio version didn't seem to exist anywhere.

Since then, someone on U2be has created a video featuring little stop-motion animated plastic army men.  Score!  Now I can post it.  And you can go hear it.

Watch the aforementioned YouTube fanvid for "Little Guns."

Quick entry today, need to get this done before the lunch hour.  Really like this Pretenders song, I think it might be my favorite one of all.  Well, OK, it may be a toss-up between this one and "Tattooed Love Boys."

Basically, if the topic comes up and (depending on where I am and who I'm with) I feel somewhat reluctant to declare my love for a song called "Tattooed Love Boys", then I choose "Show Me" as my top Pretenders song.

OK, OK, the topic has never come up.  Jeez Louise, I'm just trying to fill some space here...

Watch the video for "Show Me" on Spike.

Today I was merely looking to post something that would serve as a contrast to all of the Dream Theater songs I've been putting up lately.

This nice, simple Ramones tune should suffice.

Hear "We're a Happy Family" on YouTube.

"AAAAAAAH MAKE THE BAD MAN STOP THE BAD PROG METAL AAAAH I WANT MY CATCHY TUNES AND HUMMABLE MELODIES AAAAAH WHERE'S THE BEAT???? AAAAAAAH"

Sorry.  I really don't mean for this to become a Dream Theater blog.  But I just snagged a couple more of their album downloads (including 2005's Octavarium), so I still have them on the brain.  I also just watched Live at Budokan and loved it.

I realize that the two people who still read this thing would probably hate Dream Theater.  Or at least that would have been true a year ago when I actually had two readers.  Hmm, maybe I SHOULD just convert this into a Dream Theater blog.  At least then maybe a couple of people who like DT would show up here and then I'd have something resembling an audience.

Nah.  I really don't think I'd be able to maintain a band-specific blog for more than a couple of weeks.  A month, tops.  Maybe tomorrow I'll put up something more accessible and consumable.  Until then, eat my distorted virtuosity!  MWAHAHAHAHA!!!

Hear "Panic Attack" on YouTube.

Watch it being attempted by a rather ambitious Rock Band 2 player.

Watch a live performance.

Singwriter/model tapper Seal turns 47 today.

I'll admit freely that I like his first two albums.  They are very well made and very listenable, with a sophistication most pop music doesn't have.  And he really does have a great voice.

I'll also admit that I haven't exactly been ecstatic about his entire body of work.  I heard an absolute god-awful Seal song in a physical therapist's office once.  God, it was wretched.  I can't even remember what it was called or which one of his later albums it came from, but it was a pungent pile of suck.

So, we'll stick with his early catalog, thangyaverramush.  Without further kazoo, here is "Crazy", one of the songs that launched his career.

Watch the video for "Crazy" on YouTube.  Well well well, it looks like Warner finally got off its duff and created an actual YouTube channel.  So this video will...

NOT

...get pulled.

God be praised.

A cow-orker (yes, I stole that term from Scott Adams) has just reheated some leftover Spam for his lunch.  And I am given an excuse to put up yet another Weird Al tune.

Not that I ever really need one.

Watch a fan-made video for "Spam" on YouTube.

This is a head-bobbing and downright addictive Primus song that I've wanted to post for a looooong time.  We're talking War and Peace long.  Seven Samurai long.  Shelley Long even.

You know about how CDs sometimes contain "hidden tracks."  I've talked about them before.  What you think is the last track plays back, then dead silence, then some new super secret song comes up.  I've never really liked the idea.  I mean, what if you happen to not like the listed track at all, but LOVE the hidden one?  You have to sit there and seek through the crappy song to get to the good one.  Bleh.  It's an even bigger pain when the listed track is of any significant length.

That's exactly the case with the 1999 Primus disc Antipop.  "The Heckler", previously released only in live form, got a nifty studio treatment, and they saw fit to bury it at the end of some nearly six-minute snoozer.  Not happy.  Over and over I had to sit there with my finger on the seek button until the track time reached 6:16.  It became habitual.

Now it's its own file on my iPod, and it is also now on Der Tube von Du.  So have at it.  No seeking necessary.

Hear the studio version of "The Heckler" on YouTube.

Hear the live version from Suck on This.