I think The Strokes have discovered hope

Have you guys heard the new Strokes album? It's really good. I hear everything from The Cars and Queen to Men At Work, Red Hot Chili Peppers and the odd touch of Zeppelin (specifically, Robert Plant's wrecked vocals on "Custard Pie"). They even drag out some '80s gated-reverb drums to make you feel icky/awesome. It all sounds warmly familiar, and yet totally fresh and new with the signature Strokes sound. In '80s drag or something.

But also interesting to me is that Julian Casablancas seems to have added a dimension to his standard bored/disappointed/blasé songwriting. I can't think of a Strokes song that you could characterize as "caring" or even "interested", and I've listened the hell out of the first album and perhaps as much of the second album (trying to figure out why it just doesn't sing like the first). But hearing him sing, "Don't go that way / I'll wait for you" on "Under Cover Of Darkness", makes me think it's the first time a Strokes song has used a voice that says "I actually care about something" as opposed to the perpetual detachment/disinterest that they've championed since "Is This It". Compared to the last album, when he sings, "I hate them all / I hate myself", I'd say it's a significant departure.

It's no wonder this thing is the single off the album. It's a banger, and it's bright, and it's filled with hope. I hope it gets lots of play. I'm always tempted to write in the hyperbolic superlative and dub this moment the Great Hipster Awakening or something equally as bold and unverifiable, but I won't. I'll just say that Angles is probably their best album since their first, and I like it a lot. Because this post started as a status update on Facebook and I just had too much to say.

State of the MJ funeral

In addition to being a cultural moment for the world, Michael Jackson's funeral is like a status update for the tech and media landscape. We see Hulu teamed up with Fox, CNN with Facebook, USTREAM partnered with CBS and Twitter, and MySpace rolling solo. And I must say, MySpace has the clearest and largest picture, the cleanest sound, and the freshest stream. Could be because they're based out of LA, or because their stream isn't tied to a media dinosaur, but they're really cleaning up on their own turf. It's nice to see MySpace own it where they should be — music and pop culture.

It's also a reminder of what basic Internet service is now capable of: I've got four live video streams coming through my cable connection, hardly any of them hitching. MySpace has crystal clear picture and real bass. I'm watching live tweets and status updates and texting another friend about the service.

And as my friend texting points out, you really can't help but notice that no other entertainer compared to Michael. He was like the Secretariat of entertainers — no one even came close.

Talking digital with Hulu, JibJab and Thumplay

My latest segment on the LinkedIn Blog ran Monday, and it's quite a scoop. Where else have you been able to catch Hulu CEO Jason Kilar, JibJab CEO Gregg Spiridellis, and Thumbplay SVP Mitch Rotter alongside the "Don't Copy That Floppy" guy and gratuitous tours of the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile? Nowhere, that's where.

Perhaps most interesting in this piece, Hulu CEO Kilar touches briefly on piracy: "You're much better off competing and building a delightful service," Kilar says, "as opposed to thinking that you can stop and shut down things through gateways." That's a quantum leap for anyone in Hollywood. They may have realized that the best way to beat piracy is actually to compete, to actually make it easier to buy or watch your favorites than to steal them. Is that a better investment than millions of dollars in lawsuits against fans and websites? Methinks.

Also check out JibJab CEO Spiridellis touch on the best way to build a brand digitally, and Thumbplay SVP Rotter note that the mobile space is a marketplace that people keep with them every waking hour of the day. According to Juniper, goods purchased via mobile will be a $300 billion marketplace by 2013 ... though perhaps that's a conservative estimate when you're selling pdfs for almost $3000.

The Dance Party enforce a groove embargo

My old friends from Washington, DC, The Dance Party, have redesigned their MySpace page and are enforcing the rarely used groove embargo: they've only got one track on their profile. 

"Sasha Don't Sleep" easily proves The Dance Party is the best band of the '80s, despite being a modern act. The adrenaline, the fist-pumping, the synthology. They're hyper-attuned to the mandate to move one's body to the insistent party beat. If you've ever been to their shows, you know that the mandate cannot be rebuffed. The fact that they regularly sell out the nation's best venue, the 9:30 Club, should sum it up. They play New York City this Friday night, followed by Halloween in Baltimore. If ever there were a party in Baltimore, surely it's The Dance Party on Halloween.

Go dig their latest track - hopefully a full album will emerge from this, hopefully on the well-deserved major label, hopefully with a million-dollar advance. If we're throwing back to the '80s, it's only fair.  

Anecdotal evidence suggests Island overestimated Mariah Carey album sales by 99%

Feedback on Bob Lefsetz's "Mariah Madness" column suggests that Island Records overestimated sales of E=MC^2 by 99%:

"I was talking to one FYE store manager (friend of mine) and he was complaining that they were shipped 300 copies of the album for his store and that he would be surprised if they sold 5. I just called him and they sold 3 for the week."

Not to infer too much from one stray anecdote, but since 3 is 1% of 300, I guess they overestimated her sales by 99%. This would suggest that the 463,000 copies she did sell were a great disappointment from the 45,837,000 forecast by Island (anecdotally).

Now clearly, Island didn't mean for FYE to sell 300 in the first week; maybe 300 was just to have plenty in inventory. No one can sell 46 million copies in the first week, right? Unless they're big in China. Like, really big.

I don't know, how big is Mariah Carey in China?

Answer my question on LinkedIn and be seen in Hollywood

I think about you constantly, dear reader, and I've always wondered something about you. Something special that I've never really made an effort to find out. And that's this:

What would you ask the composer of "Living On A Prayer,"

"Dude Looks Like A Lady" and "Livin' La Vida Loca"?

If you click through to answer my question on LinkedIn, your response may be featured at the ASCAP "I Create Music" Expo in Hollywood. Right at the corner of Hollywood and Highland.

LinkedIn is sponsoring an interview with Desmond Child, and the event will be integrated with LinkedIn Q&A. Child has written hits for Bon Jovi, KISS, Aerosmith, Ricky Martin and Kelly Clarkson. He's also produced a track on Mariah Carey's forthcoming album, "E=MC²", scheduled for release April 15. Read more on the LinkedIn page, and hit me with your best shot. If it's on the money, we'll feature it at the Expo. And if you're not on LinkedIn yet, you're just postponing career success. Sign up and answer my question!

Easter eggs are the best.

Whether it's Homsar hidden in a Trogdor toon or an automated psychotherapy script embedded in Mac OS X's Terminal, we love easter eggs. Like the oversized Mickey Mouse etched into the Tron countryside, or the understated phallus in the Little Mermaid cover. My art history teacher suggested that Michelangelo thumbed his nose at religious authority by painting phallic acorns on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Lifehacker has compiled 10 of their favorite software easter eggs, which we love. Software easter eggs are the best, because you really have to know some geek sauce to find them. Like Eliza:

How to find it: In the Mac Terminal (or at any command line), type emacs, hit Enter, press Escape, type "xdoctor" (no quotes).
What you get: An interactive dialogue with a shrink named Eliza. To get out of it, hit Control+X Control+C.

I'm pretty sure nobody stumbled on that by freestyling UNIX commands into the prompt, just to see what would happen. Eliza is actually somewhat theraputic, in a pointless kind of tao.

My favorite easter egg is musical, on my brother's debut album. For the rare collector that owns Jonathan Toth from Hoth's "Brainwashing: The Art of Hip-Hopera" on CD, there's a hidden track before the album begins. While everybody and their mother (read: Nirvana and Dave Matthews) had a "secret" track at the end of a CD, this was the first album ever to hide a pre-track at the beginning of the CD. To hear it, you have to play the first track and scan backwards for about 2:47. It begins with some mutant foreign language and segues into some obscure sermon about the ideal man over a freakazoid beat. I love this track, and it's one I hardly ever hear. Maybe the coolest contribution to the album, and effectively no one knows about it.

Post your favorite easter eggs (like, the ones that aren't already documented all over the web) in the comments.

I am blowing up on iLike

Analog Jetpack is far-flung across America

For those that haven't heard what the Analog Jetpack is out and about as of late, here's an update.

In the middle of last year, I moved to LA with plans of developing relationships in the music and television industry, hoping to expose Analog Jetpack, Indie Roots and all the many local DC talent to a wider audience. At the same time, bassist Dan Ryan and drummer Robby Sahm had taken up the rhythm section for a new DC act, Le Loup. They played their first show at the Velvet Lounge at the end of March a year ago, and following a show at Iota a couple weeks later, they were signed to the new Sub Pop subsidiary label, Hardly Art. They've taken the nation by storm, to say the least, with generous coverage in Pitchfork and all the right places. Currently Le Loup is down in Austin for SXSW, and following that, they'll be touring across America and back! Be sure to check out their MySpace page for tour dates.

Their album, "The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly", is a broad concept conceived by lead singer/banjoist Sam Simkoff. It's lush with reverbed-out electronic sequences under mystic choruses and majestic roots instrumentation. Their live set, performed by a seven-piece act with keyboards, french horn, banjo, plenty of vocals and guitars and the compulsory drum & bass, does the album justice and promises huge things for future projects - check out the full album on iTunes.

My latest solo project is also a concept album at the other end of the spectrum, commissioned by a senior citizen in the midwest. It's my sixth album, entitled "For Mature Audiences Only," and it's like Muppet music for old folks. It departs from indie stylings to present a broad sampling specifically for senior citizens, from lounge to pop, cha cha, folk-rock and country blues. The resulting concept album is a whimsical tin-pan alley homage to old age for the +60 demographic. Executive Producer Judith McKelvey commissioned the project to tap the senior market, for whom little content is written. The album was recorded by Emmy-winner Jerome Maffeo in Baltimore, and mixed by Grammy-winner Dan Gellert in LA. Click on the image to listen and buy the album at CD Baby, or check it out on iTunes.

And of course, Analog Jetpack's debut release is now available in its limited-edition floppy disk packaging - click through to their MySpace page to see pics. This album was also recorded and produced by Jerome Maffeo in Baltimore, and it features lead guitars by Matt Jones of Jimmie's Chicken Shack and antifolk producer Spencer Chakedis. Check out the review by DC's City Paper, and click on the image to read more and listen to the full album at CD Baby, or check it out on iTunes.


That's what's up with Analog Jetpack, always keeping busy with some projects or others. Keep an eye out for a 'Net release of an Indie Roots tour documentary, covering the one-week DC Voting Rights Tour from 2007!

New album Tuesday: "For Mature Audiences Only"

Okay team, for awhile I've been dropping hints about a new concept album coming up, and the proud day has arrived when I can offer you: an album for and about senior citizens.

I know what you're thinking, "But how can I get a copy of this if I'm not a senior citizen?" Fear not, we aren't discriminating against who can buy the album, nor against who can enjoy the album. But it was commissioned by a senior citizen, Executive Producer Judith McKelvey, and her intent was to make some quality tunes for the baby boom. (Aside from Beyoncé.)

My new album, "For Mature Audiences Only" is released February 12. It was recorded by Emmy-winner Jerome Maffeo in Baltimore and mixed by Grammy-winner Dan Gellert in LA. It features my friends Janessa Gans on violin and vocals, Suzanne Waters on vocals, Miles Decastro on sax, Christian Valiente on bass, and Jerome Maffeo on drums. I play a few instruments, including banjo and kazoo. The hardcopy booklet insert also features 12 pages of lyrics in fashionable period graphic design.

As this is my first project composed and produced on someone else's dime, I'd love it if you picked up a copy. It's a pure concept album, and you can listen to the whole album at iTunes, Last.fm or CD Baby, read lyrics and linear notes at my website, or buy a hardcopy from me with Paypal by clicking on the image below:

Apple's new Feist: Yael Naim

In the event that anyone is wondering who that earnest, hopeful voice is on the new MacBook Air ads, here's the artist herself. I see Apple seeking to duplicate their success with Feist, not so much on behalf of the artist, but to maintain their own ouevre as cultural même providers beyond the tech industry. I'd say they did a bang-up job in selecting Yael Naim's "New Soul".

(via ChannelKris)

Lyrical blueprint for 2008 RPM Challenge

I've stepped up to the 2008 RPM Challenge.

To help me visualize the project as it develops from scraps and rags, I've written all my lyrics on a page, overlapping and blending according to their arrangement on the album. Most of this is stream of consciousness based on loose titles I assigned according to the sound of a riff or chord progression. I wrote most of these over the weekend on a plane to Boston, a train to New York City, and a plane back to LA.

This is step one. The album will be called "t3h pwn".

Frozen Foods in the Boston Phoenix

Writer Ben Westhoff covers some Frozen Food projects old and new in the Boston Phoenix this week, including a photo by our St. Louis friend Benjamin Shepard:

The TSA Is Curiously Akin To DRM

For the holidays, I booked three one-way tickets on three airlines that required negotiating five different airports. And everywhere I go, I see the operations of the TSA as a grand, tired farce on the American public. An op-ed in the Times sums it up pretty well (via BoingBoing):

The truth is, regardless of how many pointy tools and shampoo bottles we confiscate, there shall remain an unlimited number of ways to smuggle dangerous items onto a plane. The precise shape, form and substance of those items is irrelevant. We are not fighting materials, we are fighting the imagination and cleverness of the would-be saboteur.

And thus the TSA's most visual security efforts amount to little more than production value. Theater. Disrobing down to my socks into Rubbermaid bins before a flight is useless and dehumanizing, and makes me feel no more safe than before the almighty 9/11. As the article points out, the agency is a reactive beast, perpetually one step behind the latest plot, taking away pointy things and liquids and scanning shoes years after terrorist plots sought to exploit these means.

In this, there is a curious similarity between the TSA and the purveyors of DRM. The countless man-hours invested in both can be undone in moments, resulting in either a) a fiendish terrorist tragedy, or b) a duplicated DVD. In the case of the TSA, their porous security safeguarding can be broken through the unanticipated breach, rendering all reactive counter-measures for shoes and liquids useless. In the case of DRM, their millions of dollars in development can be defeated by one hacker in a few hours on a home computer.

The Transportation Security Administration and Digital Rights Management both seek to beat insurmountable odds by locking up impossibly porous systems. The trouble is, they can never solve the system for the 0.01% who actually want to break it, and instead present inherently flawed experiences for the other 99.9%. The antics of the TSA don't anticipate the dedicated terrorist, but do inconvenience millions who just want to travel from point a to point b. The efforts of DRM purveyors don't stop the avid hacker, but do inconvenience millions who just want to move their media from device a to device b.

The fundamental difference, of course, is that terrorists want to use public property for nefarious ends, while hackers want to use their private property (or licenses) for private entertainment. The TSA seeks to protect the public, while DRM seeks to restrict the public. Both achieve terrible results.

Solutions diverge as well. In principle, the TSA is a much-needed protective agency. It should, however, be the last line of defense before terrorists reach our transportation systems. Intelligence and immigration should police suspected parties instead of dragnetting the masses moments before boarding. DRM, meanwhile, is a principle of restricting fair use of copyrighted material. The notion is that profits can be maximized by restricting access to content. On the contrary, the free use of such material acts as promotion and creative fuel, encouraging properties far more monetizable than expensive locking mechanisms.

Only the overhaul of the underlying principles will effect any change in these flawed systems. In both cases, the systems are inhibiting the growth of the industries they seek to protect: because of them, I fly as little as possible and buy no media infected with DRM. In other words, the TSA is killing the airline industry. And DRM is killing music.

Radiohead made more on InRainbows than all other albums combined

Here's a mindblower from Thom Yorke in the most recent Wired, where he talks with David Byrne about music:

In terms of digital income, we've made more money out of this record than out of all the other Radiohead albums put together, forever — in terms of anything on the Net. And that's nuts. It's partly due to the fact that EMI wasn't giving us any money for digital sales. All the contracts signed in a certain era have none of that stuff.

So InRainbows, released as a cost-optional download, made more for the band in three months than Pablo Honey, The Bends, OK Computer, Kid A, Amnesiac, and Hail To The Thief combined.

The qualifier is "in terms of digital income" of course — and Radiohead isn't on iTunes, the top-selling digital marketplace. It looks like they're on Amazon's, and I'd check Napster and eMusic, but you can't search their titles unless you're a subscriber (a design flaw for their services).

But still, wow. Three months trumping a storied 15-year catalog is pretty amazing. EMI is either doing something wrong or keeping all the money for themselves. I'd guess both.

Reality TV's most hackneyed phrase...

... is, without a doubt, "thrown under the bus." As in, "She threw me under the bus!" or, "If I don't have immunity, they'll throw me under the bus!" This is the betrayal, the heartbreaking of reality rejects who make poor alliances because they can't read character or can't compel an alternative. People get thrown under the bus by the minute on reality tv.

Contestants spout off this phrase compulsively whenever a voting-off-the-island is about to happen, but if I really dislike the show, I'll imagine I hear it four to five times per episode. Tonight I heard it on the Biggest Loser finale on NBC. On the finale. How can anyone get thrown under the bus on a weigh-in finale? The only thing you hear more than "thrown under the bus" on Biggest Loser is the pernicious Subway plugs. I wouldn't be surprised to find they sold the phrase "thrown under the bus" to Greyhound, who pays them every time it's said. Lord knows some of the participants live for reading product placements on camera. 

This may be the worst possible time for a writer's strike from an entertainment point of view. NBC already announced that they're weaning off drama and serials for more game shows and reality tv. The problem is, both of these genres painted themselves into a corner years ago. Reality tv is dead. The format holds no drama: group of 20 is whittled down to one by voting or judging, and challenges win them prizes or immunity along the way. This holds true for everyone from aspiring supermodels to the morbidly obese, exploited pioneer kids, seamstresses, chefs, and those odd few hoping to sway an ambiguously bi-sexual MySpace web-lebrity. (That is, ANTM, Biggest Loser, Kid Nation, Project Runway, Top Chef, Shot At Love with Tila Tequila. Kind of an apocalyptic gathering.)

That said, I'll always tear up at watching fat people lose weight. It's life-changing.

Game shows, meanwhile, have become fixated on giving away the most money for the most banal tasks. The bar is set low to make everyone feel like a challenger ("I coulda been someone!"), and the contestants are inundated with spotlights and pounding drums and minor chords, and then the guys says, "We'll find out... when we come back!" And the audience groans like what we only ever wanted in our hearts, in our heart of hearts, was to find out if that case had $1 or $1,000,000 in it, when the guy could've just walked away with $37,500 for no compelling reason. The tide was turned with Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, and the tradition continues with Deal or No Deal and 1 versus 100. I feel bad for accomplished comedians who have to pay the bills by hosting game shows. They did something real to get there, they got out there and worked their material and carved out a niche in the toughest job in show business, and then they took their accomplishment and cashed it in for a career in white bread. It's like cutting your teeth on punk rock to make a lateral move to Musak. (Though it's a step up from Funniest Home Videos for Bob Saget.)

Drama, as it were, or theater — theatre, if you will, is dead. Dare I say, kicked the bucket. And since I've already declared reality TV dead and what the hell, game shows, let's make some more DOA proclamations: cop dramas — dead. Poorly repackaged Sex And The City knock-offs — dead. Comedies with overdrawn wha?? titles (e.g., "The New Adventures Of Old Christine")— dead. Dead, dead, dead.

Television, theater, drama, writing, the creative urge itself is in dire need of a renaissance or revolution or reconciling or reorientation or retardation or something "re". Given, most of these things beget the mediocrity they seek to overhaul. But I'd love to see a play written by Beck followed by an abstract animated short by Woody Allen with a cubist sketch show improvised live by Dave Eggers and a 12-piece band played all by Zach Galifianakis with a short film chaser by Shiina Ringo.

I think what I'm saying is, TV needs to be challenging to watch sometimes. Nothing much is as of late. I'm signing off with that.

One Night In Atlanta: Vincent Gallo, Cock Rock & Maritime Tunes.

I was in the ATL on a rare business excursion this week, and I thought I must seek out some local sounds. At a dusty-crates record store on Peachtree, I quizzed the clerk on the clubs, and he wrote some ideas on a notepad. I was off to Little Five Points, the adopted spot for Atlanta hipsters.

The first stop of the night was the Star Bar, where some meaty cock-rock bands were gearing up for a go at awesomedom. A fellow named Johnny La Rocha worked the bar, striking a fine Vietnam vet or Jesus, depending on one’s perspective. He told me the real show was over at Eyedrum, where some of his friends were seeing Vincent Gallo’s new music-art project. He said it was only 10 minutes down the road and that I could probably make it.

Abstaining not from serendipity, I drove over and dropped $15 at the door of a rugged concrete-and-I-beam structure, which featured installations and exhibitions by local artists. Eyedrum is the kind of place I’ll own when I’m independently wealthy. Beyond the gallery, a hushed crowd stared intently at a quartet making loose jangles of sonic atmosphere. Gallo sat hunched over a mirror-plated guitar, sporting a thick blonde wig bound with a headband, A thin brunette in a blue jumpsuit touched a keyboard. A long, red nightshirt hung from a tall blonde dude playing guitar with his back to the audience. The fourth wore only tiny gym shorts and tapped cautiously on a drumset bearing their name, RRIICCEE.

Signs reading “There should be no photographs taken during the performance” plastered the walls, so I did a quick study of the show on my hand with a V7. Two small fluorescents lit the stage. The sight dripped with pretension, much like that of Gallo’s controversial movie, “The Brown Bunny.” I liked that film, awash with self-indulgence, and I liked RRIICCEE.

The overt communication of the group was limited to a slight nod from Gallo to the drummer as they felt their way through a tuneless landscape. After about 15 minutes, Gallo mumbled something and they left the stage to uncertain applause. A girl behind me asked if she had missed that much by coming late. People began to filter out quietly, some griping. Someone said the idea was that they never rehearsed. A dreadlocked white guy complained that the drummer never even touched the hi-hat.

I headed back to the Star Bar, where a thick foursome belabored some power chords. I talked with John some more, having traded CDs and listened to some of his band, Ocha La Rocha, in the car. He writes songs with a fiery weave of acoustic/electric distortion, to pleasing effect reminiscent of The Black Crowes and others I couldn’t put my finger on. He told me he was really into the psychadelia sound and gave me names of LA acts to check out.

John asked, “You wanna go to the real party?” The final act was sound-checking angry pentatonics. Amidst the Goths and punks, someone asked me if I was reviewing the show. “Yeah… you don’t wanna be here tonight,” John said. He told me the real spot was an unlabeled club over on Ponce De Leon, behind the Chipotle, called MJQ. MJQ was celebrating its tenth anniversary with some local bands and DJs. I listened to the final band’s first song and decided to head to my third club in as many hours.

Behind the Chipotle, a gray clapboard shack drew down to a crazy space beneath the parking lot. Blue-tinged and strung about with shiny streamers and stuffed fish, the theme was the proverbial “Fish Under The Sea” dance (if Back To The Future is a proverb). The crowd was thick and smoky around the bar, but fairly sparse on the dance floor, where a five-piece called Tongo Hiti played “maritime songs” on ukelele, theramin, guitar, drums, and rubber chicken. They had a convincing sound for their chosen niche.

I caught only two songs before they wrapped up their set. House music came on and people flooded the dance floor, breakdancing and shaking about. I discovered a back stairway up to the parking lot. The doorway at the top fumed like the chimney of a greasy barbeque, venting all the cigarette and club sweat manufactured below into the crisp night air. It’s been awhile since I’ve had the pleasure of smelling like ass after a night of music. As most of the cities I’ve lived in have banned smoking in clubs, I’ve become spoiled with the smoke-free experience. But it’s a fair price to pay for a nice little triangulation around Atlanta’s indie scene. If that’s a typical Wednesday, a proper weekend is highly anticipated.

DC City Paper on Analog Jetpack: "We The Geeks"

The DC City Paper has published a good review by Ben Westhoff on Analog Jetpack's new album, And How They Flew. I have mad respect for Ben, as he's published music reviews and insightful music features in weeklies nationwide. When we met, he was writing a story for St. Louis' Riverfront Times on my brother Jonathan Toth from Hoth and Tucker Booth and their epic hip-hop escapades with The Frozen Food Section. Described me in the story as a "squeaky clean, 28-year old folksinger." Since then, Ben has sat down with 50 Cent, caused a messageboard uproar by calling Jay-Z "hova-rated", waxed big booties for the Village Voice, and served updates on  Trent Reznor, Val Kilmer's music career, and the brains behind blackpeopleloveus.com.

In this good company, I don't mind being called out too:

Rob Getzschman, a former D.C. resident now living in Los Angeles, has toiled in relative obscurity for years, releasing mostly anti-folk solo albums that wear left-field politics (Songs for the Anti-De-Counterrevolution), sense of irony (Heirs of Pretension), and high self-regard (Hypocrisy in the Genius Room) on their jacket sleeves...

...even at its poppiest the band isn’t exactly mainstream—on “ICBM,” the group sounds more like They Might Be Giants and Barenaked Ladies than anything now on the radio. On the album’s opener, “We Are the Freaks,” Getzschman addresses his intended target market: “We are the freaks/A loose union of disillusion/Cold distinguished by the company we keep.” That seems a little off—they’re the geeks, of course, disinclined to do anything more radical than fashion fun hooks and embrace their inner nerds.

Funny that this should come through so powerfully.  The Six Points Music Festival summary by On Tap reduced Analog Jetpack to "Clever and nerdly pop-rock blendings." As if comics and obsolete technology aren't cool or something? Surely the geek niche is looking for a rock band laureate...

Read the full review here.

Analog Jetpack offical debut today

Today marks an important musical date for me, as my first album beyond solo work is being released on The Frozen Food Section label. It feels good to see it being getting out there, as the production of it was a long process, stretching from January to June this year for recording, and right up until last month with manufacturing. Before that, the band involved a long process of writing new material and polishing older stuff. The album features three songs we wrote on as a band, including one which we never managed to play live called "Robot Garden".

The album was produced by Jerome Maffeo, drummer of Jimmie's Chicken Shack, at his Right On Recording studio in Baltimore. We're fortunate to have the hot licks of his lead guitar player in JCS, Matt Jones. And with more solos and lead guitar is Spencer Chakedis of Deep Sound Diver and The Drive-By Proposals. He's also the antifolk producer of my second and third albums. These hands lend much soul to the project.

Friends, the album is good. I think you'll like it if you manage to purloin a copy. Help us crack the 500 record sales barrier in the first week. Buy one for your momma, you daddy and you tippy-toed granny. Hook up your neighbor. Make jubilant Christmas presents for all your co-workers. Myrrh is très gauche this season, because it has consecutive rr's followed by an h. Forget that.

Buy from any of the links below. If you purchase from the Paypal link at the bottom, I personally will drop a disk in the mail for you the same day, and you will have a hot orange envelope in your hot hot hands in a matter of hours. Together, we can make dreams come true.

iTunes :: CD Baby :: Amazon

Antifolk Is Dead (deconstructed).

To kick off the new blog at www.robgetzschman.com, I'll send out the old Hypocrisy In The Genius Room by summing up the closest thing it had to a single. "Antifolk Is Dead" is one of the more popular songs from the album, probably because it addresses an enthusiastic niche of indie music. It seems to sell lots in the UK, which has a taste for the old a/f. Antifolk, as most do not know, is a niche of solo-ish songwritery acoustic-punk artists on the Lower East Side of New York City.

After I left NYC in 2001, I wrote this some of this song in a journal in 2002. I never got around to finishing it until 2004, when I finally went to record Hypocrisy, which was intended to be an magnum antifolk opus. Here are the lyrics, footnoted et al. with complete explanation for those that have been down since day one (c. 2000, which, yes, is not day one).

To listen to the song and album, visit iTunes or CDBaby.

On the ace of avenues I played my cards where the sidewalk meets the street

1) The antifolk scene resides largely on Avenue A, where 2) the mainstay venue is the Sidewalk Café, Avenue A & 6th.

The eastern side as the raven flies where you can surf unreality

3) This is all on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where 4) another popular open mic was Wednesdays at The Raven, Avenue A & 12th, and 5) more elaborate antifolk functions took place at Surf Reality, a rented space above Stanton and Allen.

Where every visionary is a latch-key kid and everybody's got a re-run dream

6) Everybody gets their start on the antifolk scene by playing the Sidewalk, which is booked by Lach. 7) Lach recounts his own history as a replay of Bob Dylan's experience in Greenwich Village, in which...

Of being thrown out the door by the folk-hardcore for sounding like a hillbilly

8) Bob Dylan was barred from his first gig by folk purists, who said, "You sound like a hillbilly. We want folksingers here," as told in the song, "Talking New York" on Bob Dylan's debut. In Lach's retelling, the folk purists rejected him for being too punk.

Where there ain't no strangers to the system whether it's heroin or heartbreak

9) Antifolk artist and writer Jim Flynn interviewed dozens of the homeless in Tomkins Square Park for his book, "Stranger To The System". 10) Mike iLL's antifolk opera, "The Seduction of Sarah Sahonie", featured the song, "Crack, Heroin and Heartbreak".

Or workin' 'til close in 50 shows in 50 nights in 50 states

11) Philly antifolkist Adam Brodsky set a Guiness World Record by playing shows in all 50 states in 50 consecutive nights.

And antifolk music is dead

I stood by the foot of the bed and I watched it go

No, no, no, I said antifolk music is dead

And as soon as it was cutting edge I should've known

When there's trouble in the country and the soil rains down like you're one foot in the grave

12) Paleface's debut album on Polydor features his signature song, "Trouble In The Country", which he later renamed "Say What You Want" and included on his Multibean Bootleg album. 13) Brer Brian's self-released, Man With The Artichoke Heart, includes the song "Soil Rains Down". 14) Beck's album One Foot In The Grave is an antifolk classic, as is his harmonica stomp, "One Foot In The Grave", from the album Stereopathetic Soulmanure.

And four score lightnings hit the sky, you're bound to drive out of range

15) Diane Cluck sings "Four score lightnings hit the sky / and that's 80 if you multiply" on her keyboard-centric debut. 16) The title track of Ani DiFranco's sixth album, "Out Of Range", is a classic expression of solo antifolk.

When the bad faces come and your lucky number nine is going east with the wind

17) Grey Revell's song "The Bad Faces" includes the lyrics, "Oh, I feel the bad faces coming". 18) The Moldy Peaches' debut includes the song "Lucky Number Nine". 19) Jeffrey Lewis' song "East River" includes the lyrics, "Three, two, first avenue / Going east with the wind / Across the FDR to the east river / Fall right in."

And you don't even wanna be a rock star anymore, grab these words:

20) Major Matt Mason's song "Rockstar" features the lyrics, "I don't wanna be a rock star anymore", while 21) Prewar Yardsale's song "Weird" includes the line, "Grab these words".

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So let's all be beautiful and let's all be bulletproof

22) A Lach piano ballad pleads, "Let's be beautiful," and 23) a Joie Dead Blonde Girlfriend acoustic-punk song boasts, "I'm bulletproof, yeah yeah, bulletproof..."

And when I finally get back to that smoke-filled room I'll see the setting sun with you

24) My song "Finally Get Back / Na Na Na" from Brooklyn Demos is about walking back to Brooklyn from the Sidewalk's interminable open mic. 25) Turner Cody sings on his album This Springtime, And Others, "I see the setting sun / I see the setting sun..."

'Cause antifolk music is dead -- it floated up to balloon heaven and I watched it go

26) Antifolk producer Spencer Chakedis recorded dozens of antifolk projects at his Brooklyn (and formerly Jersey City) studio.

(chorus)

There it is for the record. For posterity. And you know how I feel about posterity.