Kingdom Of Doom

The Good, The Bad and the Queen. Damon Albarn rules.

...

Eno: Another Green World

Here's a track from one of the best Eno albums "Another Green World". You should own this record and listen to it daily. You really should.

Ok..ALL of these records: Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy. Here Come The Warm Jets. Before and After Science. Music For Airports. Discreet Music.

OK. Do as your told!

...

History of Evil

The Limits of Science

Trader Vic Warehouse Sale!

Oh Shit! This has been going on for days and I didn't know? I'm going at lunch!

Link

MBO Pics

The fabulous Photographer Scott Finsthwait took some shots of MBO recently. Thanks for sharing Scott! I'm just happy someone noticed my boots.

Nader Is In!

"Nader called Washington "corporate occupied territory" that turns the government against the interests of the people. "In that context, I have decided to run for president," he said.

Democratic candidates Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama criticized the independent candidate.

"Clinton said: That's really unfortunate. I remember when he did this before, it didn't turn out too well, for anyone, especially our country," she said. "I hope it's kind of a just a passing fancy that people won't take too seriously."

Obama, Clinton's rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, was asked on Saturday about a Nader candidacy. "My sense is that Mr. Nader is somebody who, if you don't listen and adopt all of his policies, thinks you're not substantive," he said."

Easy for them to say, as they are both taking cues (and lots of cash) from corporate special interests. You wanna argue about if the Republicans are "better" than the Democrats? Shit, feel free. In my mind it's the same thing as arguing which fast food place is better for you, Burger King or McDonalds.

Absolut Machines

Robot Machines. Ping Pong Balls.

Link

Ratatouille Wins Oscar

I know, I know, The Oscars are pretty nauseating. But I have a kinda vested interest in seeing Ratatouille win. And win it did! Plus the director Brad Bird totally rules. Check out his "Iron Giant" if you don't believe me. Cool!!

Thanks

...to all who attended the show last eve. If you are new to the site you may download our album for free, just click the links under "Download Idiot Jones".

....

MBO: What! Another Show? Zounds!

MBO has been granted an special case extended leave from the county Work Furlough program. This leave gives us enough time to play a special show this evening at our fave SF haunt The Bottom of the Hill.

We will start weeping in our man-panties around 9.

This early start time is sweet cause then we can get back to the dorms before the Bulls notice that we are gone.

Tonight we are playing with lots o friends. Following us is our old pal and studio roomate Tim Alexander. Tim plays drums in another band that some of you may have heard of? Now they are washed up loners, but they use to be stars! Tim has a new band called "Into The Presence" that I "think" are playing for the first time up here in SF? Good times!

And wrapping up the waste of a perfectly good Thursday eve is our best buddy Brian Kehoe and his Kehoe Nation. Featuring Butt House on Bass! They will most assuredly mop our sorry asses up.

Ok see you at nine. If you come at 10 then your a dick.

The Sanchez Brothers

Some years ago Arj Barker (He's the pawn shop owner on HBO's Flight of the Conchords" and a extraordinary comedian in his own right) Ruben (The master behind Zoltron) and myself recored a few hip hop songs.

Feel the Sanchez Heat

"No. We never met J-Lo
We get our Caps and Bling from the Stop n Go
We don't do Coke, We do Sweet n Lo
Cause life ain't easy for a Sanchez Bro"

The Sanchez lament
Fuggetaboutit

The album will be dropping this year! See how I said "Dropping'? That was so 1998! Yo!

Link Yo

Vampire Weekend

I like em!!

29 Days

Our pal Derek Greenberg (The man behind Beanpole and the bassist for The Spent Poets, among other things) and a group of friends have embarked on a project where each person writes a song a day, for 29 days.

I love projects containing constraints, as they force a person to work quickly and make decisions in different ways. While ultimately I'm all for taking the time to craft something, these types of projects are good to clean out the pipes. And sometimes the best songs are the ones written quickly.

Here's Derek's Songs

Link

and the home of the Project

Link

MBO Setlist Needed

Can someone write me a set list for our show on Thursday night. I don't want to think about it, and it's nice to have someone outside the fold think about a weird thing like "How to pace a set of songs"

These are the songs we are playing:

Idiot Jones Will Have His Day
Drowning Not Waving
I'm Your Ring Tone (Which if you haven't heard is faster song)
Kicking The Can
Occam's Razor
Spaceman, Time To Go
Nice To Know You (Which if you haven't heard is a slower song)

Thanksgiving Prayer: William S. Burroughs

...

MBO Bulletin Board

The MBO Bulletin Board is up and running..It's a work in progress, but should do the trick. Let me know what features are working etc, and if anything is driving you people nuts while using it. Link below and on the right side of the site as well..

Let the ranting begin.

Link

"There's More To Life Than Books, But Not Much More"

Hey MBO readers! What's in your book stack? You know, the one by your bed? Here's mine. I've been getting my Sci-Fi/Horror jones on these days.

China Miéville "Iron Council"
A Marxist revolution remaking of the fantasy genre. His first in this series "Perdido Street Station" is a great read as well.

Link

Clive Barker "Books of Blood Vol I-III"
Inventive, sadistic monsters rule.

Link

Neil Gaiman "American Gods"
A fun ride indeed. Gaiman recently asked his fans which one of his books should be given away for free and "American Gods" seems to be topping the vote list. I'll link here if he gives it out.

Link

William T. Vollmann : Rising Up and Rising Down
I just got the 3,000-plus page (7 vol, yikes!) McSweeney's edition. A history of violence. A huge history of violence. I love Vollmann.

Link

Recording Diary v26

Here's a few sessions compacted into one post:

TUESDAY: We started the evening recording Ebow overdubs for the song Catch. I used my Les Paul Standard and Craig's Bass Ebow, which is cool because it has a octave setting, which gives it a nice high overtone. (An Ebow is a device that is held over a single string on a guitar that provides infinite sustain of a note)

Figuring out the single line harmonies turned out to be the most difficult part of the evening, this took a few hours. Once the parts were crafted I played them all through my Pod Live using a fuzz setting with some added delay.

Then we went home.

FRIDAY night we played around with some bass tones for "Solomon Grundy", trying my Blackface Fender Twin using Craig's hollow body Jerry Jones bass. The tone was unique but lacked low end. So we decided to try what has given us luck before and ran his bass via Direct Injection. This result yielded a cool "rubbery" tone that we both loved. Craig experimented playing with a pick vs fingers and ultimately decided on fingers.

After a few hours of fine tuning his parts Craig played the song.

Then we went home.

SATURDAY was spent on rhythm guitar for "Solomon". I ran my Les Paul through the "11" guitar modeler, which is really really nice piece of software. Recommended. We settled on a "tweed amp" setting that was overdriven. After changing strings and tuning I played the rhythm guitar part on the first take, because I'm a total pro.

I then played a guitar solo into the second verse of the song. We got a clean Fender Amp sound and I used the Gibson SG. This took about a hour and we were all happy with the solo, particularly because the electronics of the SG started shorting out (in time!)..creating a happy glitchy mistake. This is my first MBO solo and now I want to do more. Mirv, your fired.

We also set up a mic for Jeff to play a shaker through most of the song. Took about 1/2 hour.

Craig and Jeffs buddy (and epic drummer) Gene Hogland stopped by. This was my first time meeting Gene. He's a very nice fellow and absolutely the best metal drummer on Earth.

Then I went home and passed out in the hot tub.

No more recording this next week, as we have a show on Thursday and need to rehearse.

I Heart Sarah

Graham Parker: Local Girls

Sometimes called a poor mans Elvis Costello, a tag I might have agreed with if he didn't write such fucking cool songs, Graham Parker is definably one of modern pop's hidden treasures. If you don't have his album "Squeezing Out Sparks" your missing out on one of the greatest pop records ever. Man I was raised on this shit!!

Plus I love the chicks in this video.

Kaleidoscope Eyes

Ok. This is bordering on fetish, but boy this photo book looks cool. Kaleidoscope Eyes: A Day In The Life of Sgt Pepper is a collection of photo's by Henry Grossman, capturing the Beatles in their prime as they record their seminal album. It's got silver lined pages, and is on fancy paper and is made by the same masters who published "Recording The Beatles". Oh, and it's $500 bucks.

Maybe it's just me, but I can stare at Beatles in the studio pics all day long. Makes me feel like a little kid again. Fuck, I'll probably end up buying it. What a dick.

Link

Captain Cook Day

Why celebrate Valentines Day, a Hallmark/Catholic holiday, when you can celebrate the death of Imperialist Captain Cook at the hands of Hawaiian natives instead!

Link

Polaroid Stops Making Polaroid Cameras

This sucks. I wonder how fast all the Polaroid film will run out, or if someone else is still making it?

Link

Yoko Takes The Heat Again.

This sounded fishy to me from the get go. There is no way I'd believe that Yoko Ono would sue a young artist over the use of the name "Lennon"(The artist in question is legaly named Lennon). It turns out that Yoko was only upset that this artist (who's music is actually quite horrific) was attempting to "trademark" the name Lennon in association with musical/artistic performances. I can see Yoko's point here. This Lennon girl can obviously use the name Lennon, but why does she need a legal trademark of the name, it didn't stop her from getting a deal (a process involving all kinds of legal hurdles) or playing live for 8 years.

Link

Mrs Miller. Jimmy Durante

Wraggggy?

Retro Asian Pop Album Covers

Link

Mommies Little Angel

Via Boing Boing

Videotape

I'm not a huge fan of the 1st Radiohead "In Rainbows" album (2nd one is fucking brilliant) but boy this is a grand song from Mr Yorke and Co.

When I'm at the pearly gates
This'll be on my videotape
My videotape
My videotape

When Mephistopheles is just beneath
And he's reaching up to grab me

This is one for the good days
And I have it all here
In red blue green
In red blue green

You are my center when I spin away
Out of control on videotape
On videotape

This is my way of saying goodbye
Because I can't do it face to face
So I'm talking to you before it's too late

No matter what happens now
I shouldn't be afraid
Because I know today has been the most perfect day I've ever seen

Cool Graphic Design Challenge

Via Douglas Wilson

This is great! Super-fast typographical challenge!

The CD Album Cover Game
Name Of Your Band
The first article title on the page is the name of your band.
Name Of Your Album
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.
Your Cover
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
Tag it on flickr CD Cover Meme"

XTC

Recording Diary v25

Mirv came down to the Theosophy Center and recorded some acoustic guitar tracks on "Catch".

We wrangled a rhythm part and some harmony lines out of him. Then he went home. Took three or fours hours. A successful evening.

The following Saturday we then recorded all the vocals on "Solomon Grundy". Lots of vocals. An inordinate amount of vocals. Lead, lead doubled in areas, harmonies, back ground, back ground harmonies. That was difficult, but it went well enough. Next up for "Solomon" is recording the Bass for real, as what we have down now is just the basic parts.

I also managed a harmony line for "Catch". That song is almost done, all we need to do is record some Ebow lines and it's complete.

Now if I could just find my Ebow.

Hard at work, those MBO boys.

Two Evils. One Lesser?

...

FAIL-BLOG

Link

Paul Stanley Banter

Sixty Nine tracks of Paul Stanley in between song banter.
A master at work.








Track One
Track Two
Track Three
Track Four
Track Five
Track Six
Track Seven
Track Eight
Track Nine
Track Ten
Track Eleven
Track Twelve
Track Thirteen
Track Fourteen
Track Fifteen
Track Sixteen
Track Seventeen
Track Eighteen
Track Nineteen
Track Twenty
Track Twenty-One
Track Twenty-Two
Track Twenty-Three
Track Twenty-Four
Track Twenty-Five
Track Twenty-Six
Track Twenty-Seven
Track Twenty-Eight
Track Twenty-Nine
Track Thirty
Track Thirty-One
Track Thirty-Two
Track Thirty-Three
Track Thirty-Four
Track Thirty-Five
Track Thirty-Six
Track Thirty-Seven
Track Thirty-Eight
Track Thirty-Nine
Track Forty
Track Forty-One
Track Forty-Two
Track Forty-Three
Track Forty-Four
Track Forty-Five
Track Forty-Six
Track Forty-Seven
Track Forty-Eight
Track Forty-Nine
Track Fifty
Track Fifty-One
Track Fifty-Two
Track Fifty-Three
Track Fifty-Four
Track Fifty-Five
Track Fifty-Six
Track Fifty-Seven
Track Fifty-Eight
Track Fifty-Nine
Track Sixty
Track Sixty-One
Track Sixty-Two
Track Sixty-Three
Track Sixty-Four
Track Sixty-Five
Track Sixty-Six
Track Sixty-Seven
Track Sixty-Eight
Track Sixty-Nine

...

Here, There and Everywhere

Boy this is a cool book. Rather than detail the technical aspects of recording the Beatles (get "Recording The Beatles" for that) Emerick describes the amazing personality clashes, power plays and studio artistry of life at Abbey Road. I think I've read every book on the Beatles and this is one of the best, mainly because Emerick pulls no punches in describing what it was like to sit in a ugly room for months at a time, with people who were really tired of each other, and make the best pop music ever.

"Emerick was a fresh-faced young engineer in April 1966 when producer George Martin offered him the chance to work with the Beatles on what would become Revolver. He lasted until 1968, when tensions within the group, along with the band members' eccentricities and the demands of the job, forced him to quit after The White Album, exhausted and burned out. In this entertaining if uneven memoir, Emerick offers some priceless bits of firsthand knowledge. Amid the strict, sterile confines of EMI's Abbey Road studio, where technicians wore lab coats, the Beatles' success allowed them to challenge every rule. From their use of tape loops and their labor-intensive fascination with rolling tape backwards, the Beatles—and Emerick—reveled in shaking things up. Less remarkable are Emerick's personal recollections of the band members. He concedes the group never really fraternized with him—and he seems to have taken it personally. The gregarious McCartney is recalled fondly, while Lennon is "caustic," Ringo "bland" and Harrison "sarcastic" and "furtive." Still, the book packs its share of surprises and will delight Beatle fans curious about how the band's groundbreaking records were made."

Link

MBO

Waylon Jennings

I've been obsessing over my new Johnny Cash TV DVD. Here's a track I adore. Check out the double neck! Check out the the suit on the guy who's playing the double neck. Check out the vocal mistake at the end. Check out the feel of the song. Check out the guitar tone and and and...

Fuck!

Maharishi Yogi RIP

Founder of the TM movement and pal to the Beatles Maharishi Yogi is dead. Maharishi Yogi got a bad rap as primarily being known for his pop culture association with the Fab Four, but in reality he offered the world so much more, as he was the first person to design a simple system of meditation for western minds.

Plus he was always laughing.

Side note: I am not a big fan of the TM movement charging money to teach people how meditate, as that practice opens the doors to many sticky issues (guru worship, "enlightenment" that's obtainable for only those with money etc) but that's just my opinion, and all in all everyone I know involved with TM are very pleased with it.

Link

Recording Diary v24

I'm lucky. I have band mates who, besides being my best friends, are really fucking good at their instruments.

That being said, Craig and I spent the evening crafting a bass part for the new tune "Solomon Grundy". Craig came up with the best bass line that I've ever heard him write while in MBO. Great work!!

So we put a reference bass track down, and next we will work on tone and how the part is to be played.

Recording is fun.

Phone Sound Archives

Here's an archive of Phone company dial tones, busy messages etc. I imagine someone could do something dumb with these sounds. That's what I'm hoping for anyway.

Link

Recording Diary v23

Today we worked on the drums for a new song "Solomon Grundy".

After setting up the mics and getting a drum sound(see vid above)that we thought sounded great (IE record drums, listen, move mics, record again, listen...), I ran my Les Paul through Pro Tools using the "11" plug in.

We then ran the song a bunch of times so Jeff and Craig could learn it and then recorded 2 takes of the complete performance without using a click track.

We felt the the second take was the best.

Jeff then played a Tambourine part over the chorus and parts of the verse. Expertly done sir.

Done! Hours passed. Let's go home.

Super Bank Day

"According to the Center for Responsive Politics, investment banks, commercial banks and real estate companies altogether have pumped almost $34 million into the presidential race, with Democratic leaders Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama getting the most money."

And I guess that we shouldn't assume that these investors, who have dumped millions of dollars into these campaigns, would actually want anything back?

What are these banks "buying" folks?

Think of that on Super Tuesday.

I'm not voting for either of those crooks.

Link

Let's Split

Link

Brady Goes Down In Flames.

Sure it's just a bunch of dudes throwing and running a ball around. Yep, we had to endure a reading of the US Constitution by sports personalities that was quite possibly the worst thing I have ever witnessed in any media. Yes, our love of being sold crap reached a nauseatingly evil pitch for most of the day and yes, Russel Crow did a voice over about "perfection" that almost made me rip my eyes out with my thumbs.

But man that was a ripping game....

Picking a team to love is a funny thing. Here's why I don't like the Pats:

Brady is a fucking Bush fan boy
And they fucking cheated and didn't get a loss because of it

Anyway

New York kicked ass. I screamed at the TV and drank beer.

Good times.

GetHuman

What a wonderful idea! The masterminds at GetHuman have listed practically every major business number on Earth and they tell you how to quickly reach a human assistant to answer your questions.

Amazon, Ebay, Online banking, bathroom porn and now this! Ahh the fulfilled promise of the Internets!!

Link

Peas...

...