Yesterday, I was on the road all day and couldn’t post but when this landed in my inbox I knew it was gonna have to find a spot on ninebullets. It’s just too damned cool. I’ll just quote the email Virgil of Suburban Home sent out:

Tim Barry and Josh Small were recently invited to play Mary Munford Elementary, for Ms. Kieslers’ 2nd Grade Class. They not only played 3 songs which included 2 Woodie Guthrie renditions, but they also did a Munford Style version of “Shoulda Oughtta”. Their buddy, Dave Watkins, recorded the entire thing and the songs are available in mp3 format. I highly recommend everyone take a listen, the recording sounds great and the songs are so much fun with the backing gang vocals of the 2nd grade. After listening to the songs, I had the idea of asking Tim to let us put this out as a 7″. Tim and Josh could pose with the 2nd grade for the cover art. Let me know what you think.

Hey Lolly (by Woody Guthrie)
This Land… (By Woody Guthrie)
Shoulda Oughta - Munford Style (by Tim Barry)

A friend of mine snapped this picture in Knoxville today. You wanna put a ninebullets sticker in your favorite bar? Drop me an email and I’ll get one out to you…just send me a picture of it plastered up in your town.

Medford’s Black Record Collection - Gravedigger Blues

PART 5: The Blakes

The eponymous album from this 3 man Seattle band is another great find for me and this little project.  No gimmicks, just good music with nice variety between the songs, yet still maintaining cohesiveness.

In looking for some info on them, I came across a story in the Seattle Times about how well they’ve been doing and one part particularly stood out.  Apparently, Iggy Pop heard the band at SXSW and asked, “Who’s this? This [stuff] is good!”  I can’t say it much better, this stuff is good, and The Blakes are at 9 out of 10 ponchos on my must-see scale…maybe 9 1/2.

The Blakes- Commit
The Blakes- Two Times

The Blakes on MySpace

PART 6: Black Kids

I had heard their song “I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You” before on an indie mix I’d downloaded, and while I liked it right away, I didn’t have the urge to check out their whole album.  I mean, it’s a fun song, but not very substantial, so I didn’t expect much from Wizard of Ahhhs.

The album turned out to have the same feel as that song, light, poppy, sing-song-y with a slight tendency to the annoying, in other words, it was pretty much just what I’d expected.  The songs are fun and clever and it’s nice to listen to and maybe sing along with on the drive home from work, but not the sort of thing I can imagine myself listening to much unless a song comes up on shuffle.  I’m going to give them 7 ponchos- I would like to see them, but not over many other bands that I also want to see there.

Black Kids- I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You
Black Kids- Hurricane Jane

Black Kids on MySpace

PART 7: Booka Shade

This German Duo electrohouse duo is another group that I had heard stuff from before but hadn’t gone so far as to get an album from.  Movement is total chillout room music, at first listen I kept thinking Deep Forest with more bounce.  When the schedule was released, I found it strange that they’re going to be on from 3:30-4:30p, as this is music I’d be more likely to listen to at sunrise, but for those to whom the time 10 minutes before the end of their set is meaningful, I guess their set time should be pretty perfect.

I give them 5 ponchos if I’m already feeling tired and don’t want to fall asleep, or 8 ponchos if I’m at the right level of awake and intoxicated to appreciate them.

Booka Shade- Darko
Booka Shade- Body Language (Interpretation)

Booka Shade on MySpace

PART 8: Brand New

I’m awful with genres, but according to their Wikipedia entry, Brand New is a a post-hardcore band.  There are at least one or two songs off of The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me being played on Sirius’ Alt Nation channel and I thought they were decent enough tunes, so I was interested in checking out the album.

Lead vocalist Jesse Lacey has a great voice, very strong and earnest, and combined with good percussion and strong guitars it should be a decent album.  However, while the music behind it all may be good, the lyrics are often juvenile and trite, and the album ends up slightly angsty with a touch of cheese.  The song that really killed it for me was “Jesus”, with lines like, “Well, Jesus Christ, I’m alone again. So what did you do those three days you were dead? Cause this problem’s gonna last more than the weekend.” and “I know you’re coming for the people like me, but we all got wood and nails and turned out a hate factory.”  Holy melodrama, Batman.

Overall, The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me is pretty easy to listen to, but even though I dig the music and the vocals, due to the cheese factor I’m gonna give them 5 ponchos.

Brand New- Sowing Season
Brand New- Degausser

Brand New on MySpace

Rick Saunders posted an mp3 from each and every band playing this years Deep Blues Festival over on the Official Deep Blues Festival Blog.

Go check it out.

I just thought I’d acknowledge that this is the six hundred and sixty sixth post on ninebullets.net.

Iron Maiden - The Number Of The Beast
Danzig - Until You Call On The Dark
The Legendary Shack Shakers - Where’s The Devil When You Need Him
Hank III - Devil’s Daughter

I wish I had noticed this before. I would have made a bigger post out of this instead of scanning my library real quick.

The other day I made a post about my getting stabbed in the eye by a Sage Palm and posted a few songs with a blind theme. The band Cicada Omega chimed in in the comments with a perfect song that I didn’t even think about in Soundgarden’s, Searching With My Good Eye Closed. Since I am still suffering from blurry vision I decided I would do a follow-up post which included that track…and, if you’re like me, it’ll make you wanna hear Outshined as well so I’ve included that one too.

It also reminded me that I have Cicada Omega’s new album in my box of stuff to review and since they are playing the Deep Blues Festival next month I am putting it in the cd player when I get home tonight. I reviewed their sampler last August and it’s time to give the full-length a proper listen.

Soundgarden - Searching With My Good Eye Closed
Soundgarden - Outshined

Cicada Omega - Big Black Chain (myspace)

Instead of a corner on the dining room table I’ve got a complete office now!

I swear to God…ninebullets can’t seem to catch a break. After being mildly ignored for the past month while I painted and moved I thought ninebullets would get back on track as my life started to find it’s routine again this week. Then came Saturday morning…I was outside playing fetch with my dog. Bent down to pick up her soccer ball and BLAMMO! stabbed in the cornea by a sage palm spine…white hot heat…tears and snot (who knew eye trauma caused sinal flushing?) all over my face. The result:

So. I have one eye that can not focus on shit and this makes staring at computer screens a real bitch. Plus, I have no depth perception and the one clear eye/one blurry outta focus eye makes me pretty dizzy sometimes. What does that mean for the site? Well, the doctor said it could be this weekend before my vision clears up so it means another week of hit and miss posting. Maybe some more Michigan hipster shit from the new ninebullets.net contributor Marci. I dunno. I am gonna try and write some stuff up tonight. Till then:

Possessed By Paul James - Cold and Blind
Tom Waits - Blind Love

And you gotta be crazy thinking I’m gonna let a post about blindness pass without this one:

Manfred Man - Blinded By The Light

I can’t say I’m a huge Ladytron fan, and I had only heard Datarock a few times before, but I knew that I liked both groups enough and so many friends were rabid fans of Ladytron that I was pretty excited about the show.  As it was a work night, doors opened at 8p and Datarock went on not very long after that to a steadily building crowd.  Right away I remarked about how these guys were either in witness protection or were hideously ugly, as they all had on matching outfits of red hoodies and sweatpants with their hoods up and with big, black sunglasses on, and the stage lights were limited to a handful of red lights pointing stage-ish.  It didn’t take long to distract me from the mystery of their disguises, though.  Datarock put on one hell of a fun show, from choreographed dance moves on some songs, to aggressively working the crowd during others, to singalongs with the audience.  And then just when they’d thoroughly impressed me, they outdid themselves when they wrapped things up with a karaoke-inspired performance to the Dirty Dancing classic “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” that started playing at the end of their set…complete with a brilliant saxophone solo. 

By the time Ladytron was set to come on the Imperial Ballroom was packed.  As I watched the crowd buzz in anticipation, I was informed that the club had brought in a generator to handle the light show that was about to happen, something about how the light displays draw 100 amps and would blow every breaker in the joint in one pulse.  I’m glad someone brought some electricity to their show, because Ladytron didn’t.  With lights blinding and synths blazing, they put on a decent enough show, but I don’t know if they chose too good of an opener or if they put on too poor of a show.  Either way, I would have liked more Datarock.  Guess we should have stuck around, as I hear they put on a hell of a dj set after Ladytron.  However, we decided halfway into Ladytron’s set that it wasn’t worth calling in to work in the morning and headed out.

If you haven’t heard these Norse hip kids before, check out a couple Datarock tunes

Datarock- Princess
Datarock- Fa Fa Fa

Datarock on MySpace
Ladytron on MySpace

I came to know of Lyrics Born via his guest spots on Blackalicious’ albums, N.I.A. and Blazing Arrows, as well as through his remixes of R.L. Burnside’s “Goin’ Down South” and “Someday Baby” on A Bothered Mind. While I’ve know of Lyrics Born for years, I’d never managed to pick up any of his albums, so with the recent release of Everywhere At Once I decided to remedy that.

Lyrics Born comes outta Berkley, California with (imo) one of the best rap voices/deliveries in the game.  That, matched with tight beats, and then fused with hiphop, funk and a dash of electro/rock resulted in an album that is as fun as I wanted it to be and makes me wanna start scooping up his back catalog. LB, Blackalicious and the entire Quannum Projects label are what’s right with hiphop. The fact that hardly anybody knows who they are is what’s wrong.

R.L. Burnside - Goin’ Down South (Lyrics Born remix)
R.L. Burnside - Someday Baby (Lyrics Born remix)

Blackalicious - Do This My Way (feat. Lyrics Born)

Lyrics Born - Don’t Change
Lyrics Born - I Like It I Love It

Lyrics Born’s Official Site, Lyrics Born on myspace, Buy Everywhere At Once