A good friend, Josh Walters of Leroy Townes and the Lonestars, sent me a cover of Nine Inch Nails’ “Mr. Self Destruct” that he recorded on a whim.  He whipped up a nice slide show to accompany it and I’ve embedded it below.  I’ve had the privilege of performing music with Josh on a number of occasions and, in fact, he was my next door neighbor for a number of years.  I post the video here because I know a few members of the Minority who are big NIN fans and I found the cover to be quite haunting.

I think this is a good example of a cover worth recording.  If you’re familiar with the Trent Reznor’s original piece you’ll quickly notice how much of the cover was created out of whole cloth.  This approach to covers either works well or ends disastrously.  I enjoyed this.  Anyway, here’s props to childhood friendship:

I haven’t posted in a while so you’re probably all wondering what I’m reading these days.  I’m a few years late on this but Daniel J. Levitin’s “This Is Your Brain on Music” has been a page turner since I started it on Monday.  Its a must-read for any musician who, ya know, can actually read.  Levitin is a session guitarist turned neuroscientist who details how music engages our minds.  The book is wildly informative and, so far, has taught me a whole lot about timbre (rhymes with amber).  That’s actually a good gauge as to whether you should read the book.  If you like music and don’t know what timbre is then get your ass to the bookstore.

Finally, I feel I owe everyone an explanation for the reason my posts have been few and far between.  For art’s sake, I’ve cleverly hidden the explanation in the haiku found below.  Enjoy!

Some health insurance?

I have none.  But I might have

A staph infection.

The music industry and The Sherman Anti Trust Act have been going toe-to-toe this week.  The most recent incident is a juicy allegation of price fixing amongst Guitar Center, Gibson, Fender, and other manufacturers.  Guitar Center is more or less synonymous with price gouging so there’s no surprise there.  Gibson is now run by an egomaniacal lunatic and, a few months ago, had its Nashville headquarters raided by the feds  for allegedly importing some endangered wood from Madagascar.  So, again, not a lot of raised eyebrows when those assholes are named in litigation.  The inclusion of Fender on the list intrigued me at first until I remembered this tid-bit:  I bought a new Telecaster last year on credit with the promise of 0% financing for an entire year.  I did what any rational person did and paid Fender $0 for the next 11 months.  Now February is approaching and they’re gonna tack on a bunch of interest if I don’t pay the balance in full.  I’ve spoken with friends, family, and a few bankers and they all assure me this is normal and I’m a dumbass.  Well who’s the dumbass now?  The gig is up, Fender!  I know all about your price fixin’…free Teles for everyone (or just me)!

While the FTC is busy getting their panties wet over $900 guitars, the Justice Department has found that the proposed merger of Ticketmaster and Livenation does not present a threat of monopolization to the live music industry.  Really?  TM and Livenation, as separate corporate entities, were already snugglin’ up uncomfortably close to Miss Monoply in their respective fields.  Now we’re supposed to believe that the combination of the largest ticket seller and largest venue booker is supposed to alleviate the problem?  Call me a cynic, but I’m pretty sure that’s way fucking off base.  There’s a lot of details and contingencies and yada yada yada but whatever.  I may not be a Supreme Court Justice or anything but I live with a Vanderbilt Law student and scored in the 92^nd percentile on the LSAT.  I’m pretty sure those two tid bits qualify me to call a spade a spade and call bullshit on this merger.

To top it all off, Christine Varney of the DOJ insists that as a result of the merger “we will see [ticket prices] come down.”  How many times did she have to practice that line in the mirror before she could say it without going into hysterics and messing her pant suit?  I know I sound bitter but trust me, I’m pretty much VIP at any show I want to go to anyway, so I’m fighting for you guys, not me.  I’m a man of the people…as long as I don’t have to rub shoulders with those people.  They’re generally poor and carry communicable diseases.

Here’s a segment from the film “Black Dynamite” that opened up at my neighborhood’s arthouse theater this weekend.

You can watch the trailer here.  Obviously, I plan on seeing it as soon as the football game concludes tonight.  How am I, an uber-white person, supposed to react to this film in a public setting?  I have no idea what proper etiquette calls for in this situation.  All I know is that there’s nothing as innocent and pure as hearty laughter, so I’m going to laugh hysterically.  I can’t be faulted for that.  If anyone gives me shit I’ll just start yelling at the screen to show them what truely offensive behavior looks like.

The Belcourt, the theater referenced above, has a full liquor license.  I’d never expereienced this before going to see “It Might Get Loud” there in the fall.  Anyway, I got way too excited, drank way too much, and had to leave during the film to take a piss.  Only in hindsight did I realize how predictable that course of events should have been.  Despite this, I’m still a little miffed that they refuse to sell you more than two drinks at a time.  A two drink limit might be appropriate for a middle schooler but not for this dude.  Get with it Belcourt!

Switching gears, I just picked up one of the most critically acclaimed country releases of 2009, Buddy and Julie Miller’s “Written in Chalk”.  Nashville has more or less universally praised the effort and it isn’t hard to see why.   Check out the track below.

I’m still sinking my teeth into the album but I highly recommend it for anyone sympathetic to singer/songwriter stuff and looking for an in-road into the country genre.  Buddy Miller’s guitar work, although not highlighted in the above captioned track, really is phenomenal.  Keep in mind that if none of you guys positively respond to my country suggestions you will FORCE me to post a 10,000 word opus called “In Defense of Country Music”.  You don’t want to read that, I don’t want to write it, so just get on board for fuck’s sake.

Finally, this story in the NY Times about cavemen is awesome.  I’ve never been one to fall for diet fads but this lifestyle just screams Rural Minority.  The peice is two pages long but you really need to read the whole thing.  It starts off totally bad ass, increases in bad assery, gets a little weird for short bit, then quickly returns to bad assness.  Anyway, I’ll take the plunge if you do.