Entries Tagged as 'podcast'

Existentialism and the Art Of Lawn Maintenance

Back in the early 90’s I was living with my good friends John Williams and Jay Fleming in what we affectionately called The Triple “J” Ranch, a house in the Heights on Arlington Street.

Right before the 1992 Republican National Convention John and Jay concocted this idea of going to a warehouse/coffee shop known as Downtown Grounds for poetry night and presenting Jay Fleming as Jay Fontaine - Industrial Poet with John paying the part of his manager from New York.

What ensued was pure performance art genius. The regulars for poetry night ate Jay’s performance up with a spoon, not realizing they were being “had” and believing they were witnessing some kind of outsider poetry/art.

Now, years later, I find the performance on Youtube and people are comparing Jay to a cross between Slingblade and John Candy. That just about sums it up. See for yourself.

Jay Fontaine - Industrial Poet

 
icon for podpress  Flash Video [6:17m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (103)

Thorazine Shuffle

Back in the day when I was doing Wake Up And Smell The Coffee on KPFT I discovered a band called Bongos, Bass and Bob which featured magician Penn Jillette on bass, and his friends Dean Seal on bongos and Rob Elk on guitar.

The album was called Never Mind The Sex Pistols and featured a song called The Thorazine Shuffle.

It was requested often and even to this day I still get the occasional e-mail from someone who tells me how they remember that song and how much they enjoyed hearing it on my program, all those years ago…

 
icon for podpress  Thorazine Shuffle [5:01m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (177)

O Holy Night

Every year on Technology Bytes we play this song on the air during the show right before Xmas.

The artist is unknown as it was a random find on the Internet some years ago. Our engineer slash co-host slash resident humorist phliKtid brought it to the studio a few years back and it’s been a tradition ever since.

It has been called the BEST and the WORST rendition of this song ever recorded. I will guarantee you one thing, after you listen to it all the way through you will never hear this song the same way again.

You can download the file from the link above or stream it via the podcast player just below this text…

icon for podpress  Standard Podcast [3:40m]: Download (165)

Step aside Spinal Tap

Something many people may not know about the title track from my band’s CD “Loch Ness Monster” is that it was originally written and recorded as a heavy metal song.

Consider the review from the Houston Press that said:

The album opens with the wonderfully dark ode to the creature lurking beneath the murky waters of Loch Ness. Here the beast is less the benign and almost dopey plesiosaur used to sell trinkets to tourists and much more the accursed beast with “Huge red eye, long sharp tooth / slicing knives, ragged spines” which will drag you from the banks and tear you to pieces despite your screams and struggles. Nessie, indeed.

And that’s in reference to the acoustic folk version! The heavy metal version of Loch Ness Monster is a bonus hidden track at the end of the CD.

The origins of this song go back to when Greg Henkel came up with a band called Rocrament and wrote about 10-12 heavy metal songs and his brother, Jim Henkel, recorded them. Jim laid down all the tracks and mixed it in his home studio.

Recently, Greg has been working hard with a hand-picked group of musicians to bring Rocrament to the stage and his evil brilliant plan comes to fruition this Thursday night, June 21st at the Houston Continental Club.

Show time is around 10:30 and follows the regular Thursday night performance of Jim Henkel’s Beatles tribute band “Beetle.”

Only Greg knows for sure what this performance will entail, but early reports are of elaborate stage props and costumes. Greg let me know that Rocrament has about 45 minutes of live material so you won’t be out all night on a weeknight.

This is going to be a rock show for the ages!

Check out Rocrament’s Myspace page for more information.

Click here to hear the song “Rocrament” from the original CD.

 
icon for podpress  Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (322)

Code monkey like Fritos

Code Monkey get up get coffee
Code Monkey go to job
Code Monkey have boring meeting
With boring manager Rob
Rob say Code Monkey seem to work a lot
But his output stink
His code not “functional” or “elegant”
What do Code Monkey think?
Code Monkey think maybe manager want to write god damned login page himself
Code Monkey not say it out loud
Code Monkey not crazy, just proud.

Johnathon Coulton is writing, recording and posting a song a week as part of something called A Thing A Week. This offering is “Code Monkey” and it’s a delightful tribute to software programmers.

Also of note is his “Flickr” song. If you have ever browsed Flickr (or any other photo hosting site) you will appreciate this song/video.

Lastly, Chiron Beta Prime reminds me a LOT of They Might Be Giants.

Thing A Week is available as a Podcast if you are so inclined.

 
icon for podpress  Code monkey [3:07m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (32)