Trale Lewous is not only the new voice of Skittles candy, but also the voice of a disengaged culture searching for truth and wisdom. An ideal on two feet, this visionary leader and trailblazer will undoubtedly climb to the peak of humanity and one day rule over all as a kind and benevolent prophet/king.

I wish my mom was birds.

Hank III telling it like it is, what more is there to say?
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Damn, this lady can shred!

Her name is Belinda Bedekovic, and she’s the self proclaimed ‘fastest finger on the remote keyboard’ in the world. Aside from completing her album TORNADO ON THE REMOTE KEYBOARD, she has also been offered a love explosion inside of her by Borat.
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I was honored to receive an email from Lance Bakemeyer of the Hillbilly Hellcats this morning regarding our clip of the zombie dance from Dead and Breakfast. In case there was any misunderstanding, that wasn’t the Hillbilly Hellcats music the zombies were dancing to, it was Zach Selwyn of the country rock band Zachariah and the Lobos Riders (quite an interesting cat).
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This is how you handle a heckler, I love the guy at the end yelling for his money back.
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Mike Patton is a musical visionary, a true original. Whether you like him, or more commonly, hate him, you have to respect his unique talents and his drive to push music into new directions. You also have to respect his opinion of Wolfmother:

Flight of the Concords burst onto the scene last year with this smash hit song:

If you haven’t seen this show, don’t walk – run out and find it on DVD.

I don’t know about you, but if I hear one more loser posting his ‘version’ of this I’m going to puke. Its nice to hear at a wedding, once in a while, maybe… but can you dorks not think of anything better to waste your time learning? This piece of music was written in 1680! Are you telling me that 300 years later this is the pinnacle for guitarists to aspire to? Nothing else to wank on in the basement? I mean come on!!!

Thanks to Rob Paravonian telling it like it is.

I’ll admit it, I like Diamond Dave. I also like bluegrass. If only he’d listened to Rudyard Kipling, who so wisely said, ‘Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.’ DD looks like he should be hosting some kind of 2:00am barnyard dating service infomercial for insomniac goats. The question becomes, was he hard up for cash, or did he actually think this album was a good idea?

This interview comes from the documentary You Can See Me Laughing: The Last of the Hill Country Bluesman, about Fat Possum records and its artists.

Fat Possum is one of the only labels putting out blues worth listening to these days, and this movie documents how Matthew Johnson started the label with credit cards and his student loans so he could record Junior Kimborough and R.L. Burnside. This music is raw, dangerous, desperate, savage and alive, and nobody exemplifies this more than T-Model Ford.

Aside from the aforementioned artists, there are also has interviews and clips of Cedell Davis, Asie Payton, Johnny Farmer, Kenny Brown, Iggy Pop and Bono, who for some reason needs to be in every single documentary from the past 15 years.

“T-Model’s life reads like a horror story. At the age of eight, his father beat him so badly between the legs with a piece of firewood that he lost a testicle. His ankles are scarred from the chain gang. His neck is scarred where one of his wives slashed his throat. He has been shot, stabbed, pinned under a fallen tree with a broken ribcage, beaten unconscious with a metal chair. He watched his first wife go off with his own father, watched another die after she drank poison to try and induce a miscarriage. The only woman he ever really loved poisoned him at the breakfast table; he woke up in hospital that afternoon and never saw her again.”

–”Delta Force,” The Observer, November 16, 2003

Part 2:

“T-Model’s life reads like a horror story. At the age of eight, his father beat him so badly between the legs with a piece of firewood that he lost a testicle. His ankles are scarred from the chain gang. His neck is scarred where one of his wives slashed his throat. He has been shot, stabbed, pinned under a fallen tree with a broken ribcage, beaten unconscious with a metal chair. He watched his first wife go off with his own father, watched another die after she drank poison to try and induce a miscarriage. The only woman he ever really loved poisoned him at the breakfast table; he woke up in hospital that afternoon and never saw her again.”

–”Delta Force,” The Observer, November 16, 2003

This excerpt comes from the outtakes of the great documentary Benjamin Smoke by Jem Cohen and Peter Sillen, an incredibly powerful look at the gifted songwriter. A truly unique, troubled, original personality who never compromised himself or his music.

This movie is available for rental from GreenCine.

This is a documentary about the famous manic-depressive, paranoid-schizophrenic cult music icon Wild Man Fischer. Its interesting, uncomfortable, sad, moving and funny, sometimes all at once. Contains some great interviews with Frank Zappa, Barnes and Barnes, Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, Wierd Al and Dr Demento, among others. This movie assumes you already know who he is and are familiar with his discography. If you don’t, be prepared before watching it by listening to his debut 1968 album An Evening With Wild Man Fischer. That should give you all the autobiographical information you’ll need.

This short clip describes an episode during an out of town gig.
http://www.earpoke.com//wp-content/uploads/Derailroadedclip.FLV

You can only get this film from www.derailroaded.com until they clear the rights to some of the music in North America.

This is a short clip from the 2003 documentary about Jandek. If you’ve never heard of him its probably because he is notoriously reclusive and his music is, well, different. Its outside. You’re not going to hear it on the radio, if you want to listen you have to search it out yourself. This is a very sparse and low-key film, similar to the music it tries to describe.

Its almost laughable that throughout this entire 88 minute documentary Jandek doesn’t appear in the film at all. Instead they’ve utilized still pictures, disconnected film clips and album covers to take his place. The highlight of the film is a recording of the only phone interview with the man behind the music, during this scene they filmed a telephone to play the recording over – just so you understand whats happening. Its almost like the film was made, everybody interviewed (mostly music critics) talked about how much they loved him, and then they released it and suddenly realized they forgotten to put the subject in the movie. Its interesting if you like the music, if you don’t this might not do much to win you over. Then again, why would you consider seeing it if you didn’t?

His first album Ready for the House was put out in 1978 and he has since released about two new albums a year, his discography is up to 51 self-financed, self-released albums. He finally played his first live gig in 2004 in Glasgow, Scotland and a year later played his first gig in the US in his home state of Texas.

Jandek on Corwood

This is a deleted scene from the Frank Zappa film 200 Motels. It takes place on the streets of Centerville, while Howie is trying to get a groupie (played by Mark Volman) back to his cheesy motel room to the tune of Do You Like My New Car. This scene contains the only footage of the first trial run of Cal Schenkel’s PENIS MOBILE. For some odd reason this scene never made it into the final version of the film. This clip comes from the out of print documentary The True Story of 200 Motels. Highly recommended, if you can find it.

This is the song that catapulted the career of twin brothers Art & Artie Barnes, aka: Barnes & Barnes, aka: Robert Haimer and Bill Mumy, into the stratosphere where they enjoyed eternal fame and fortune…or at least achieved the coveted ‘most requested song in history’ status on Dr. Demento show.
The duo went on to record twelve more albums (four of them best-of) for the Rhino label, eventually producing two albums for the legendary performer Wild Man Fischer (Pronounced Normal, Nothing Scary), as well as the stunning musical debut of Crispin Glover entitled, The Big Problem Does Not Equal the Solution, The Solution Equals Let It Be.

This video also boast a young Bill Paxton in the leading role. Talk about being in the right place at the right time!

I don’t know who this kid is, but somebody give him a recording contract.

If you haven’t heard of Reh Dogg, where the hell have you been hiding?

This is the video that launched his career, and its a barn burner. Reh Dogg has been really active since this video starting making waves. He’s released several more videos, released a full length album, appeared live on BET, and along with his pal Turtle, they’ve developed a huge following and several fan clubs around the world.

They lyrics are actually quite sad, and a little disturbing. Not quite as disturbing as the shower scene though.

They’ve been added below so you can sing along.
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Here’s a cool interview with Iggy Pop, originally broadcast on CBC. It was roughly the time of The Idiot/Lust for Life, when he had David Bowie backing him up on keyboards. Union problems prevented Iggy from performing on the show that night, so he’s interviewed by Peter Gzowski instead.