Soft Apocalypse

There's an old urban legend of an experiment where a frog is put in a pot of cool water. The pot is placed on a stove and the heat is turned up slowly over a period of time. By the end of the experiment the frog will have boiled to death without its knowledge. 

A metaphor for our economy and America in general.

It must be nice to be that frog. Not having panic and anxiety over supporting a family and future income.  That's where all of my anxiety is these days. 

I suspect it's the same for many of you. 

In the "new america" many of us are working harder, more stressfully and making less money. It's gotten to a point that the "FEAR" is overriding everything. Trying to find the help to whistle past the graveyard works sometimes, but it tends to also eliminate creative urges as well... hence the scarcity of posts (you've noticed????) as of late. 

Hopefully, this fog will lift. And that light at the end of the tunnel won't be a train coming.

Reading: "Soft Apocalypse" - Will McIntosh - File under "Dystopian future reality" - A group of ordinary folks circa 2025-2035 try to survive in a dying America where unemployment hovers around 60%. Things only get worse.

What the world needs now...

is some of these guys.

Ladies & gentlemen:

THE MC5

Spotify

Spotify finally came the US of A yesterday and I was able to snag an invite.

For those who don't know, Spotify is a "cloud based" music server that functions as competition to iTunes (as it indexes all of your hard drive music files and works as a player). The difference is that you can also stream virtually any music that you don't own as well! Unlike Pandora, which works to "recommend" music based on your preferences, you can actually search for bands and play whatever you want.

For example, I have a couple of the three million or so Guided By Voices lps on my hard drive. When I plug in "Guided By Voices" in the search field on Spotify, I can stream many of their albums, plus compilations and the service recommends "like" artists such as The Replacements, Built To Spill, Dinosaur JR, etc.

Their are levels of service that you can pay for, but I am finding the "free" service just fine. I haven't figured out if you can actually download and save the songs (like on Napster), but this entire concept removes the need to "own" the music.

Additionally, you can make playlists, post them and others can share your lists- so we are all now our own personal radio stations. It links into all the "social" networking sites as well.

Is this the "game changer"? It just might be. I assume at some point Spotify will remove the free option, but for now it's free.

And it's awesome.

Live For Today

From the always excellent site Willard's Wormholes, comes sad news that The Grass Roots' singer/bassist Rob Grill is in a coma and not expected to survive.

One of the great "singles bands" from the 60's, The Grass Roots have had a lasting legacy, with cover versions of their songs done by such alt legends as The Replacements, and Stiv Bator's Lord's Of The New Church.

The "walking bass line" on "Midnite Confessions" has always been a source of amazement for me. 



And dig Jimmy Durante doing an intro- holy retro!







And here's the 'Mats covering "Temptation Eyes"

Real American Heroes

Today we focus on some real American Heroes:

Hunter S. Thompson 

Paul Krassner


Ed Sanders


and, of course... THE RAMONES!!!!!


Enjoy Your Weekends!