MEDICATION: A BUDDYHEAD BLOG

Stevie Wonder - "Maybe Your Baby"

Whenever my wife and I have drunken idiots dancing around in our living room and/or kitchen, you can count on this song being played at least once at a window rattling volume. Put simply, it is one of the funkiest songs ever written. It's a warm skinny-dip in an ebony pool of funky ass sex sweat. The theme is an age old one; my girl dumped me and worse, now she's fucking my best friend. Sad, sure, but who gives a fuck. When you hear that clavinet come swingin' around the bend like a hot pair of enormous sweaty nubian titties upside your head, you could give a shit about your ex-old lady. All you care about now is moving yo' ass all over the goddamn place. The groove is so heavy, so thick, so rich and deep and chocolatey, you wanna kill yourself by way of dry-humping you speakers to death. It's that fucking good. I have the rash to prove it. Plus, Ray Parker Jr.'s ripping some mean ass guitar here. Yeah, yeah, I know he did "Ghost Busters" and some other crap later in his career, but here, he's as nasty and wicked as Maggot Brain ever was. And yes, that's some nasty, wicked shit.

(Download Stevie Wonder - "Maybe Your Baby")

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Spiritualized - "KFSD radio session"

That isn’t the cover of this cd. The fucked part is I actually have it here in my room... somewhere. But I'm a pretty lazy guy who doesn't feel like digging through the giant junkyard pile of compact discs that fills up about 1/4 of my apartment and then scanning that cover in, just for your nerds. So instead you got a photo of Jason sucking a fag off, which is way cooler anyways in my opinion. So... the music... These are two songs J and his homeboys laid down at the KFSD radio station (which is in San Diego) and that their label sent out to radio stations, record stores and people like me for some reason. I think I read somewhere that this was the first Spiritualized radio session ever (also check out the one at KEXP). These are very stripped down versions of two Spiritualized songs that you could convince your mom to like. The first is "Stop Your Crying" (the studio version had come out on "Let It Come Down", which is a lush album with a 00 piece orchestra) and the second one is "Hold On" (a version later appeared on "Amazing Grace", which is the newest record they recorded in about two weeks). I like em both (then again I like pretty much everything this guy’s done), but the Harmonica blast in "Hold On" makes me wet in my pants. Seeing as how you can buy this, you should go buy “Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space” (if you haven’t already), take it home, turn it loud and proceed to drink, snort or smoke your way through the night. It'll all make sense, trust me..

(Download - Spiritualized "Stop Your Crying")
(Download - Spiritualized "Hold On")

[Buy something by Spiritualized at Insound]

Black Mountain - "Black Mountain"

I don't know much about these guys aside from the fact that they made one of the best records so far this year. Ok wait up, I do know a few more things about em that'll fill up some space on this page... I heard they are Canadians, eh? Take off hoser! Which makes me think that Nardwuar is probably really stoked on them (he loves good bands from Canada like DOA). I also heard that they are all in some sort of hippy dippy "art collective", which I hope doesn't mean they play hacky sack. I fucking hate that hacky sack bullshit. The ass-grabbers that are into that shit are always wearing those stupid birkenstock sandals and those big retarded hats that look like hackey sack themselves. Well, hacky or no hacky, these dudes made a bitchin' record that came out on a label called Jagjaguwar. Check that shit out for sures. It sounds very non-contemporary (which is a good thing) and eludes to influences such as Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Neil Young, Can, Funkadelic and dare I say James Brown? It's not as good as any of that shit (in fact that reminds me I've got to post a Funkadelic song), but it's about the best anyone is gonna do today. I haven't seen these guys live yet (has anyone reading this seen em play?), but unless I get real stoned and forget about the show, I'm going to go check them out when they roll through LA next time. Bet on it biotch. Tour dates and the like are on their website dudes, so peep that shit. Oh yeah, and a bunch of different people will be writing for this page real soon so you won't have to read my bullshit all the time.

(Download - Black Mountain - "Druganaut")
(Download - Black Mountain - "Heart Of Snow")

[Buy this at Insound]

Bad Brains - "Attitude"

“WE GOT THAT ATTITUDE!”  Holy fuck!  I’ve had Bad Brains self titled ROIR release since I was 14 and it continues to blow me away whenever I listen to it.  Bad Brains, seen as one of the originators of hardcore punk rock, played faster and with more precision and style than any of their peers if you ask me.  In my mind, this is a perfect record.  Though impossible for me to narrow it down to a favorite track, “Attitude” has always been one of my favorite songs.  What kind of Attitude you ask?  PMA (Positive Mental Attitude).  Though the lyrics are short and to the point, I think it is extremely important, especially this day in age, the approach life with a Positive Mental Attitude.  For those who have followed Bad Brains’ history, we all know they did not always live up to this Positive Mental Attitude, but god damn, in the early days they might have been the best band in the world.  Don’t even get me started on the Bootleg live show tapes I’ve seen from this era…  I wish I could play the last 20 seconds of “Don’t Need It” into this track.  That transition always got my blood flowing and my heart pumping  (you know the drum breakdown at the end of ‘Don’t Need It’ to when the whole band kicks in on ‘Attitude’?  Maybe its just me…).  This album embodies a true “Punk” spirit.  It transcends barriers of all sorts (race, musicianship, musical genres), resulting in the creation of a timeless classic (this album is older than I am).  For some of you this may seem like an obvious post, but I know for some of the new generation of kids, they are not familiar with the Brains.  PLEASE stop reading now, go out to your local record store, and PICK UP THIS ALBUM.

(Download - Bad Brains - "Attitude")

[Buy this at Insound]

400 Blows - "The Ugly Are So Beautiful"

God, I love this band. These dudes are the ultimate bum out band. And I don't mean that they bum me out. I mean they are the perfect soundtrack to bum out your roommate(s), parent(s), cops, teachers, neighbors, etc etc. Case in point: I like to put this bad boy in my stereo, put my speakers face down on the ground, turn it to 10 and press play. It really ruins my downstair neighbors world. Which is only fair cuz those two stupid bitches wake me up by playing shit like "Lowrider" (on repeat for 45 minutes), Eminem and other music aimed at 14 year olds at 4am. Anyhow, this song slays so download it. The album it's on ("Black Rainbow") slays too, go buy it. Then buy their "The Average Guy" 7 inch that we just put out on Buddyhead. And buy their GSL full length when that bitch comes out in a month or two. Oh and why I'm telling you what to do, check out their website and go see these doods live. How punk is that cover? Black gloves and shitty mics are real punk.

(Download - 400 Blows - "The Ugly Are So Beautiful")

[Buy this from Insound]

The Duke Spirit - "Lion Rip" + BBC Radio Session

I'm not really sure if you can buy any of this band's records in the US yet or not. If you can't find em at your local record store, I guess try finding them for sale on the internet or take a trip to the land of tea, crumpets & purple vegetables. Their first full length "Cuts Across The Land" (which Buddyhead listed as one of our best records of 2004, even though it still hasn't come out yet in our homeland) came out in February on Loog Records and is totally solid shit man (that means it's real fucking good if you're not from America and reading this). The Duke Spirit sound like they dig on records from The Jesus And Mary Chain and The Velvet Underground (among other tasteful bands), which in my book is "right on". Hopefully "Lion Rip" will come out for real in this country. But don't get your hopes all high kids, cuz somehow this band ended up on Interscope in the US and the chances of that label caring about a real band anytime soon are probably about as likely as the people that work there getting souls. Speaking of soul, give this single from the record with the same name a spin. It's pretty fucking BOSS. And in case you wanted to like The Duke Spirit a little more, check out the band's list called "The Duke's Alphabet", which appears on dukespirit.com and further confirms their coolness. A tour of the  UK is announced for May 2005, but so far no dates for the United States. While you're waiting around for this country to figure out who this band is, take a listen to this BBC radio session where  they play live versions of "Cuts Across the Land" (from "Lion Rip") and an older song  "Nine And Scramble" (from their EP "Roll, Spirit, Roll") as well as an interview where they talk about how they like to get drunk and take their shirts off.

(Download - The Duke Spirit "Lion Rip")
(Download - part 1)
(Download - part 2)
(Download - part 3)

[Buy "Loose Lips" Zine at Insound]

Good Morning, Captain

Welcome to 2005, where we can talk freely about music! Enjoy it while it lasts. Corporate consolidation seems to be creeping into every facet of culture these days, and of course it's already reared it's ugly head on music sometime ago. So as I wake on this Easter Sunday I think to myself of a few bands that I wanna listen to. A few bands that wave the proverbial finger at it all: CURSED, MELVINS, DISCHARGE, BORIS, COLISEUM, and BORN AGAINST to name a few. I’ll get some MP3's up lickity split as soon as Travis teaches me how. Then we’ll get into some real internerding! Until then... check out these bands or pull the records out of your collection for me and put em on!

The Stone Roses - "Tell Me"

This is probably my favorite song The Stone Roses ever wrote and it appeared as a b-side to their FIRST single ever, titled “So Young” (the a-side ain’t bad either) if you can fucking believe that one! Brilliance at the gates! Holy fucking cow is right! You can also find it on "The Complete Stone Roses" CD (which is a collection of singles from the first album and before). “Tell Me,” sounds very little like either of their later full-length records; it’s very raw in a gothic punk sorta way. Very Joy Divisiony if you will. Plus it’s got that “fuck off if you don’t think I’m the greatest ever attitude”, that only Ian Brown could bring you and only Oasis could copy and make millions off of. I recommend buying their first and self titled record (“The Stone Roses”) as well as their second and very unpopular record “Second Coming” (if only for the first song “Breaking into Heaven” alone). I know this is a very unfavorable stance to take, but I really honestly think that “Second Coming” is almost as good as “The Stone Roses”, it’s just very different. I have yet to meet someone who agrees with me on that topic. When I interviewed Ian Brown a while ago he told me “On the first record John [Squire] was pretending to be Jimmy Page and on the second record John was pretending to be Jimi Hendrix. And John is real fucking shit at being Hendrix!”  Anyhoo… I won’t even go there right now. In closing this band rips, this song makes me wanna flip off cops and if you don’t agree you’re a twit. I am the garage flower!

(Download - The Stone Roses - "Tell_Me".mp3)

[Buy this at Insound]