Ratatat - LP3

Let's call it SNES rock, shall we? Mike Stroud and Evan Mast have been tweaking synths and coaxing all manner of chirping, buzzing, glitchy riffage out of guitars for several albums now, but LP3 is probably the most tuneful effort yet from the instrumental duo. Latin flavors season the rhythms on tracks like "Mirando" and "Mi Viejo" while Jamaican dubbiness gets a playful makeover on "Flynn" and the irresistable "Bruleé". The latter song sounds like a sugar-rush amalgam of Gorillaz, Flaming Lips, and some fiendish hidden level from Super Mario World. Trebly harmonized guitars gleefully embrace their processed tone, and on dance-oriented numbers like "Shempi" they unite with synthesizers and drum machines to evoke the woozy pre-teen fun of staying up way past bedtime in a vain attempt to vanquish that last Mega Man boss. 16-bit hip-hop beats, shamelessly digital arpeggios, and crystal-clear production make this a solid choice of soundtrack for your next princess-rescuing excursion.

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Real Emotional Trash

Let the haters cling to the notion that Malkmus peaked with Slanted & Enchanted and is wasting his time exploring his burgeoning guitar prowess since Pavement's demise nearly ten years ago. Their loss. Real Emotional Trash is the guitar album of 2008, and a versatile one at that. Recalling Pig Lib opener "Water and a Seat", "Dragonfly Pie" opens with a lurching stoner blues riff to cast the appropriate black light haze on the proceedings. Not that SM is going to abandon his knack for easily conjured tumbling melodies- the simple choruses for "Cold Son" and "Out of Reaches" are pure prettiness. The blithe gallop of "Gardenia" encapsulates many of the charms that makes Pavement so revered, like seemingly tossed-off lyrics (Richard Avedon? Afrikaaners?) and a reverence for sunny garage pop from bygone days, but the polish of his tight new band (extra credit to drummer Janet Weiss on this disc) is certainly a long way removed from the days of Gary Young and the low budget video for "Cut Your Hair" that used to crop up on 120 Minutes back in Ye Olde Alternative Era. Could the ultimate 90's rock slacker actually be considered a (gulp) guitar god these days? The epic, stratospheric soloing on "Elmo Delmo" and the "L.A. Woman"-inspired frenzied ramble of the title track seem to announce that Malkmus is no longer waging war against that guitar strapped over his shoulder. Embrace your new fretboard hero.

Metaform - Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

As the stature of DJ Shadow's Endtroducing seems to swell with each passing year it's hard to figure out if that album has set an unapproachable standard for beat-choppers or if we should just acknowledge it as the shock-and-awe opening salvo in the war to find the perfect sample collage. Anyone making trippy, mellowed out instrumental beats is going to get compared to DJ Shadow, and Metaform is no exception, but let's just drop any debate over copycatting with this genre shall we? We've managed to stop comparing every rock band to the Beatles, right? Now that that's out of the way- damn, this album has got some groove. The tyrannosaurian drum and bass of "Brick & Mortar" makes for a shuddering compliment to the minor key synth riffs and female shouts of "disco party!"- it's an unexpected contrast to the soulful brushed drums, piano, and saxophone that fill out the swanky jazz-hop of "Urban Velvet" on the prior track. It's hard to escape the gritty Seventies feel on this album- you can practically sense both your shirt collar and hairstyle increasing in volume as you listen. "Let Your Hair Down Girl" sounds just as porn-tastic as the title implies, and the vibraphone-led "Lonely Boy" is like the walk home after striking out with said girl, trying to keep up the strut while nursing a bruised ego. Sprightly guitar trills, horn section jabs, unrepentantly smooth string accents- toss this disc on at a party once everyone's already a little buzzed and see what hues emerge from your mood ring.

Oneida - Preteen Weaponry

It starts with some filtered guitar drone, snare rolls, and cascades of free-form cymbal hits. The snare quiets for a moment and then returns with a militaristic march suitable for the album's title. Cleaner guitar and keyboards enter and add a whirling dervish of hypnotic riffs on top of the expanding drum work. At around the 4:30 mark the bass begins cycling through four four-note motifs that become the basis for the first third of Oneida's challenging new album-long exploration. The intensity patiently ratchets up. It's not a stretch to draw comparisons between "Part 1" and Ravel's modern masterwork "Bolero". Both use an insistent beat and waves of repetition to create a grandeur that belies the compositional simplicity at work. Obviously the vocabulary is of a different, rawer kind in this case. Crackling distorted squalls of something-or-other mark the transition to "Part 2" like post-nuclear shockwaves. Pitiless, soldiering toms pound the rhythm as more ominous guitars and keyboards contribute to a mood of Floydian dread. The haunting appearance of reverberating, almost Middle Eastern styled vocals nearly 20 minutes in compound the alienation. Welcome to the machine and set the controls for the heart of the sun. "Part 3" begins with swirls of phased and wobbly guitar while the first hint of a rock beat germinates before settling into something more like an electronic breakbeat. The drums take the lead of this closing segment, the ultra-low bass and pedal-heavy guitar textures framing the harrowing urgency of the cymbals. When the beat abruptly ends, it's as if the survivors of the apocalypse that ended "Part 1" have run until exhaustion (or perhaps the inevitable marauding hordes) finally felled them. This is ambitious work, and it requires an attentive front-to-back listen to appreciate the dense, distortion-marred landscape unfurling for the listener.

Beck - Modern Guilt

You have to pay attention to the guy. Beck's earned that much, despite some critical backlash over recent albums. I for one thoroughly enjoyed Guero, but the somewhat scattershot The Information has easily gotten the fewest replays of all Beck albums in my collection. So what next? Why hire Danger Mouse, of course and churn out some retro big-beat psych-soul! It was a busy year for Danger, so it's understandable if much of the rhythmic emphasis of Modern Guilt overlaps with Gnarls Barkley's The Odd Couple. You've heard those drums on "Gamma Ray" before and the seldom heard E-flat minor that anchors "Modern Guilt" also powered Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy". "Don't know what I've done but I feel ashamed" Beck sings on the latter song, the one-two beat like a quickening pulse befitting the uncertainty of 2008 (and dig that nifty little synth fill!). The paranoia is echoed on the gorgeous and ethereal "Chemtrails", as jets rain down some sort of mind-warping fog on the masses below. The growling bass and yearning, almost choir-like vocal interact seamlessly to define what must be considered one of the strongest songs released this year. The consensus seems to be that the second half of the (too short) album drops off in quality. I wouldn't dispute that contention, but don't skip the album closing gem "Volcano", a rather profound tale of depression and ennui that can be thought of as an expansion of the heartbreaking doubt revealed on Sea Change. It's a mystic end to an album of abstract ideas and acid-soaked inspirations. Maybe that explains the long hair Mr. Hansen's been sporting. Far out.

The Bug - London Zoo

Hi there, hip-hop. Doing okay? Great. Guess what? Auto-tune vocals just aren't very scary. Where's that grimy underbelly that used to get Tipper Gore's panties in a wad? Perhaps if concerned book-banning types want to think of the children they might (or might not) want to turn their attention across the Atlantic and hear what's happening in the world of London dubstep. The Bug is Kevin Martin's nom de guerre for his aggressively dark constructions that catalyze dub, hip-hop, and underground club beats into a caustic and often nihilistic depiction of this uncertain first decade of the 21st century. Want scary? You need "Skeng". Showcasing the most overwhelming, subwoofer-ransacking beat of the year, "Skeng" is a brutal dose of bass and patois with lyrics about, well... killing people. It's hard to tell if it's more bark or bite, but the song's video featuring Flowdan doing his low-tech angel of death impression with a superimposed skull doesn't exactly broadcast warm, fuzzy vibes. Warrior Queen's defiant snarl on "Poison Dart" is another highlight, as screeching synths lay back in the mix like incoming cluster bombs. This is not uplifting music, but the production is almost faultless, allowing the shuddering beats to serve as some sort of catharsis. If the world's going to hell, it might as well have some bounce as it's going.

Blitzen Trapper - Furr

I like it when I put a band on my "best of" list one year and they thoughtfully release another excellent album the next. These eccentric Oregonians have refined their sound a bit, sanded some rough edges, and emerged with a focused collection of rustic, freewheeling tunes that just feels right. The opening "Sleepytime in the Western World" dances through a complex chord progression like an early 70's Bowie tune (Mick Ronson-style lead guitar added for good measure) with back porch harmonies and organ hinting at The Band. Slick stuff. But any discussion of this disc needs to hone in on the title track. "Furr" is my pick for the best song of 2008, and one of the handful of best rock songs of the millennium. It's about feeling like an outsider, coming of age, falling in love, reconciling your identity, and transforming into an wolf. Not necessarily in that order. These are big subjects, but the acoustic guitar (capo at the seventh fret if you please), kick drum and harmonica cradle the weighty ponderings in an immediately likable embrace, comfortable as a campfire. This is songwriting at its highest level, friends. The attention to detail throughout makes this album a wonderful repeat listen- check out the countrified synth whine on "Black River Killer", the lovely layerings of "God & Suicide", and the happy partnership of acoustic and steel guitar on "Stolen Shoes & a Rifle". It's fresh music that sounds like it could have been written 35 years ago. Let's be thankful that Blitzen Trapper appears to be riding a creative peak with no intention of letting up anytime soon. Another dozen songs in 2009... please?

Dr. Dog - Fate

Retro? Yeah. Got a problem with that? Philly's Dr. Dog, like Blitzen Trapper, are maintaining an old-school album-per-year pace and an old-school aesthetic to match. The quintet is more than happy to shake their tambourines and let the harmonies ooze out of their arrangements, even if it opens up the common criticism of sounding too much like Lennon/McCartney (and sometimes Harrison- The opening strums of "My Friend" are almost interchangeable with the intro to "Wah Wah" from All Things Must Pass). Fate is just lousy with "oohs", "aahs", and "la la las". That Danko-esque bass strut hasn't changed a bit from past albums. Once again, piano and organ both prominently outline the classic feel of the proceedings. Maybe it's not Earth-shifting innovation, but if it works it works, right? There are stick-in-your-brain moments everywhere here- the undulating piano of "The Old Days", the killer reggae stutter bass and sneakily piercing guitar riff of "The Ark", the half-step hammer-on in the chorus of the gorgeously constructed "From". "Uncovering The Old" may be the song title that best personifies any band in 2008. "Army of Ancients", "The Old Days", "100 Years"- this is a band that revels in temporal metaphors and imagery, and succeeds at spinning some pretty timeless sounding rock in the process. "You know fate has a funny way of comin' around" goes the tagline of "The Beach", a fitting mantra for a band that can move forward while looking back over their shoulder to admire the influences that inevitably follow them.

TV On The Radio - Dear Science

I envy and pity thee, TV On The Radio. Your last album ranks as possibly my favorite disc since 2000. But with great success comes great responsibility. Perhaps it's not entirely fair, but like Radiohead with their OK Computer or The Shins with Oh, Inverted World I'm inevitably going to compare everything that emerges from TVOTR after Return to Cookie Mountain with that idealized conception of what I think they should sound like based on a past triumph. So I'll say it here- I don't like Dear Science as much as its immediate predecessor, but that doesn't mean I don't like it. Can't grumble about the opening though- "Halfway Home" piles understated interval-jumping vocal melodies on top of the band's trademark guitar drone and an addictive wordless vocal hook. The drums drop into a half-time feel on the chorus as synths and falsetto set up the raucous final minute of the song. The darker atmospherics on other efforts are less prominent on Dear Science, with twitchy dance feels gaining favor on tracks like "Crying", "Dancing Choose", and "Golden Age". The latter song echoes LCD Soundsystem during the verse with a big electro-soul chorus bursting with horns, sounding like a hipster tent revival. "Feel it quake with the joy resounding / Palm to the palm you can feel it pounding" exults the final verse, one of the more artful jolts of optimism you'll hear in contemporary rock. "Shout Me Out" sounds a little clunky to these ears- wordy and weighted down by an awkward double-time transition. Fortunately, follow-up "DLZ" embodies all the things I love about this band. Probably the darkest track on the disc, the spaciously murky groove supports a litany of cascading background vocals and synth slashes while the barbed lyrics pop and skitter, dishing out biting imagery like "This is beginning to feel like it's curling up slowly and finding a throat to choke". More horns lead a parade to end the album on "Lover's Day", as if to announce that despite all their brainy abstractions, TVOTR sometimes just want to shake a leg and feel the blood pumping.

The Black Keys - Attack & Release

On Magic Potion it sounded as if Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney were a bit stifled by the limitations of their buzzsaw guitar and clattering, cymbal-driven drum ethos. Yeah, they had the raw blues thing down with swing and soul to spare, but there were spaces begging to be filled. For Attack & Release the duo made the currently popular career move of recruiting Danger Mouse, and he does a fine job of redecorating the Keys' backwater shack without too much tidying up of the dirty bits that lend so much character to the place. Organs flare up like a Delta squall on "All You Ever Wanted". A phantasmal choir moans low on the driving "I Got Mine". Slinky bass slides around over plaintive, minimal piano, banjo, and a second helping of ghostly backing vocals. Flute(!) even makes an unexpected cameo on "Same Old Thing". Great touches, one and all. But the bread and butter (or maybe grits and gravy?) for the Keys involves 100-proof blues riffing, and "Strange Times" serves up a double shot with a hellfire main guitar lick that manifests itself in the ear quite nicely. Add some synth and keys over the half-time outro- yeah, I like what you've done with the place, Danger. Auerbach may thrive on the badass juke joint stuff, but he can spin a soulful ballad when the mood strikes, too. Album closer "Things Ain't Like They Used To Be" brings the heartache- "The yard is kinda overgrown / And all those happy times are gone" he sings after a guitar solo that trembles with the hard realizations he's forced to make. The Black Keys are one of the most consistent bands out there right now, and it's great to hear them expand on their strengths with a producer who jives with their shake-and-rattle minimalism.

Man Man - Rabbit Habits

This is not an obvious album. You don't give it a spin and deduce "Ahhh, sensitive singer-songwriter", "Snotty British dance-rock", or any sort of readily apparent label after the first song or two. What to make of that voice first of all? Frontman/Keyboardist/Ringmaster Honus Honus bellows with a croak-throated, howling abandon that might send some listeners scrambling to find the safety of Feist on their iPod. Man Man are a bunch of weirdos. No other way to put it. How else to explain the demented brass band sway and hiccupping turnarounds of "Big Trouble" or the Zappa-esque madman xylophone (not to mention the title) of "The Ballad of Butter Beans"? What kind of band records nine seconds of fireworks and titles it "Mysteries of the Universe Unraveled"? But don't be deceived by the obvious eccentricities. Like The Flaming Lips, Man Man has a clever knack for dressing up existential angst in outlandish costumes and theme park psychedelia. "Why can't anything be easy? /Why do I always dream / With teeth falling all over the street?" bemoans Honus on the lament of "Easy Eats or Dirty Doctor Galapagos". Perhaps the most surprisingly poignant song of 2008, "Rabbit Habbits" combines a spare, but unexpectedly jaunty piano melody with clarinet (or bassoon perhaps?) to set up the final stanza that sums up the lonely narrator's plight:  "And over time, defined by how you carry on / And all of the tore songs you keep inside / And all of the songs that hang in the night/ even after you're gone." What a sensitive soul! Well the following track, "Top Drawer", might dispel any thoughts of Mr. Honus being strait-laced marriage material after hearing him shout "People claim I'm possessed by the Devil / But Mama I know I'm possessed by your daughter!" Man Man easily changes suits between pounding, punkish raucousness and the anachronistic tendencies displayed on something like the 8 minute-plus epic "Poor Jackie", adorned with oompah melodies seemingly plucked from some Bavarian beer hall in the 19th century. It sounds like nothing else on this list. Being singular doesn't automatically confer greatness of course, but Rabbit Habits is absolutely packed with creatively unorthodox twists and oddball instrumentation. It's swaggering, confident, theatrical, multifaceted, supremely non-boring, and utterly unconcerned if its sonic melange isn't quite your cup of tea. Crafting art that stands out in a crowd without abandoning the basics that draw an audience in the first place is tricky. Man Man's freewheeling carnival traverses that highwire and leaves me eagerly anticipating the next time their mad circus rumbles through.


Short takes:

Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog - Party Intellectuals

The fractured freakout title track sets the pace, with snappy, skronky bass supporting guitar wizardry that's more thoroughly processed than a McNugget. There are skippable moments of aimlessness at times, but this set is a warped, funky vision of power-trio jazz that doesn't compromise its dedication to the weird.

Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

You can flesh out the details by reading the dozens of other lists praising this debut, but I'm a bit more reticent to proclaim these guys the next big thing. There's too much damn reverb and the mood trends towards the langurous, but when it's pretty, it's very very pretty- particularly the memorable sing-song round of "White Winter Hymnal".

Brian Eno & David Byrne - Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

Two old pros make it look easy on this collaboration. Soulful yet electronic, danceable yet philosophical, arty yet domestic. The effervescent, rubbery groove of "Strange Overtones" and the Amazonian throb of "I Feel My Stuff" are highlights of this methodically arranged disc. Electro-pop for middle age.

MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

Dave Fridmann's fingerprints are everywhere on this energetic freshman album. The first four tracks virtually explode from the gates with giggly synth chirps ("Time to Pretend"), dorm-room soul ("The Youth"), sophisticated space-rock ("Weekend Wars"), and a good old-fashioned bass driven summer jam about gettin' it on ("Electric Feel"). Oracular Spectacular is brimming with caffeinated ambition- it will be interesting to see if MGMT can avoid a crash after this initial buzz.

Bill Frisell - History, Mystery

It's a cliche to refer to instrumental music as "cinematic" but sometimes that lazy descriptor fits. Frisell leads a lively string section on this effort, deftly weaving through the enigmatic sorcery of "Probability Cloud", the Old West drama of "Struggle", and the rousing, rolling momentum of "Baba Drame". Frisell's still about the classiest-sounding axeman out there- always a pleasure to hear his quirky leadership on display.

in two-thousand and eight we got new jobs, quit old ones, got married and had babies.  some of you may ask, "what in god's name will the burning dirty band do next?" i can tell you that we are in the process of confirming our second annual appearance in the millennium music conference in harrisuburg pa!  they have been gracious enough to invite us back and offer a prime spot in their showcase of regional talent.  stay tuned for more action from the bdb in 09.  we'll have new songs, new shows and a new government.  stay classy.... 

Damn! 2008 fast!

I think like most of us music fans who get into Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon was the album that wormed its way most deeply into my consciousness, a subtle kind of infiltration that manifested itself prominently during my late teenage years. It's an album with a tremendous kind of seductive power and those heady years between 16-19 seems to be the age when almost everyone identifies strongly with the sentiments DSOTM covers: alienation, mental anguish, and the thoroughly unfair cold human facts of time, money, and conflict. It's an album you "outgrow"- that's at least the common perception among a lot of other music fans. At the very least, it's an album that is absorbed during so many hazy evenings in a  dorm room or parents' basement that it becomes unnecessary to keep listening to it a decade or more after first hearing it. Those notes are in your DNA.


It had been quite some time since I, at the advanced age of 28, had given DSOTM a proper front-to-back listen. Cory offhandedly tossed out the idea at a rehearsal early this fall- "why don't we cover Dark Side?" We chuckled at first, but then instinctively noodling around realized that we knew the chords to "Breathe". I knew the main riff to "Money", a line that I think every bassist picks up within a few weeks of buying a bass. Jereme knew those haunting opening chords to "The Great Gig In the Sky". Hmmmmmm. We've covered plenty of Pink Floyd in the past: "Fearless", "Astronomy Domine", even the leviathan that is "Echoes". Maybe we're up for this. But tackling their most famous work, and an album that is so meticulously produced and arranged? Would we have to pipe in sound effects? What about the synth weirdness in "On the Run"? What about the saxophone? What about all those female vocals? We'd figure it out. We gave ourselves a few weeks to listen, learn our parts, and then give things a whirl at rehearsal in a few weeks.


And so I revisited Dark Side, this time with the perspective of a musician dissecting sounds that I thought I had practically memorized. You may have noticed this, but DSOTM is an awfully good album. And surprisingly, most of the chords and melodies are fairly easy to grasp. Floyd had monumental talents, but flashy virtuosity was not what this album was about. Most guitarists or keyboardists with just a few months' experience could make it through pretty much all the tracks with little difficulty. E minors, D majors, pentatonics- I know this stuff. The minimalism really struck me after a few listens. That wonderful verse progression on "Us and Them" is just two notes on the bass, and the chorus has a whopping four different notes. "Money" is a blues in B minor basically, despite all the time signature and dynamic shifts. Hey, being Roger Waters is easy!


That first run-through... well, maybe it isn't so easy. Nailing the beginning of "Breathe" takes some work, dammit. And it's only through playing that you realize how truly laid-back the tempos are in these compositions. Restraint became the order of the day. The feel makes or breaks music with this kind of slow-brewing might. "Time" was a little busy when we first went over it. Cut back the keys, make sure the drums and bass lock and take it slow, and remember that we aren't in Abbey Road Studios, and will have the benefit of just a single guitar track. Our attitudes were adjusting to where we needed to be. Think Pink.


All that synthesized craziness in "On the Run"? Well, we came to the conclusion that note-for-note recreation was not only unfeasible, but ultimately pointless. We had to nail the spirit of the song. And for that, we found that there's little weirdness that effects pedals and ingenuity can't accomplish. The edge of a metal slide dragged down bass strings with a distortion pedal makes for a fine plane crash. No virtuoso diva available for "The Great Gig In the Sky"? Cory managed to work out a fine facsimile of the vocal improv using slide guitar. Saxophone? We made contact with Justin from the band Jazz Delinquency, who were extremely impressive at a gig we played with them in early October. This might just work.


A date was secured at the Strasburg Theater. Our friend Jay whipped up some impressive looking flyers. Word spread. The rehearsals kept tightening up. November 30th came, and we waited backstage after Jazz Delinquency warmed up the nearly 200 folks in attendance with a ripping set. Anticipation was high as Jay took the stage for his introduction, Ryan kick-drumming the famous album-opening heartbeats. We went out there, made a little ambient noise that approximated "Speak to Me" and then Cory screamed and we were off to the Moon with that huge clanging E-minor that announces "Breathe" and a roar from those in attendance. Note perfect? No. This was Dirty Side of the Moon, after all. Cheers greeted the familiar introductory drum roll to the verse of "Time". This wasn't just a band serving as a jukebox for some vinyl and black-light nostalgia. People still love these songs. 1973 or 2007- it makes little difference. The emotion tied up with this album is timeless. This is a language we all speak, and the little parts of the whole, like the tremolo-drenched chords in "Money" or the delicate piano sparkles of "The Great Gig In the Sky", these are all the secret syntax shared by speakers of this language.

Justin completed our sound on "Money" and "Us and Them" with his saxophone skills- no other way of putting it. We were getting palpable chills on stage by this point. "Any Colour You Like" was instrumental, spacey, and funky- right in our wheelhouse. This was the bread and butter sound of our earliest days as a band. The opening jangle of "Brain Damage" elicited another roar of approval. The home stretch. This is a tune where dynamics play a key role, a reflection of our own more current song-oriented focus as a band. Jereme's synth solo was perfect during the outro as we came to the time-shift into "Eclipse". The drums and bass locked in, and the vocals accumulated power as the song built. Everything under the sun was in tune. The crowd was right there with us, transfixed near the bar area or down in front of the stage, and several dozen people leaned waaaay back in the theater seats absorbing the entire sensory experience. The sun is eclipsed by the moon. The heartbeat resumes, the circle is complete, and everyone simultaneously realizes that this was a unique moment for us as a band and as performers. The crowd went nuts, and we walked off stage. We had undertaken a journey and acknowledged a landmark of our own musical development and inspiration while learning a little more about the incredible reciprocal power of performer and audience. The lines for us blurred between being jaded musicians and being listeners excited to hear one of our favorite albums again in an entirely new light. For one show at least, everyone in the room was purely a fan and a music lover, tuned into the same heartbeat. There is no dark side of the moon.

-Ben

Howdy biscuit eating turds! The Halloween is in your face and now you will know it.
There is no use resisting. Begin eating of the candies immediately. Do not not eat the candy. It will be your only friend in the cold autumn night. You will send us the candy pants. We shall wash them.
We will have the pictures to prove it. Soon you will see.

Happy Day!

Boaz

It ain't us spamming you. We hate it too. Just checking the account for the first time this weekend. Ugh.

New password. New season.

Happy Autumn. Except to the hackers. Bastards.

We love you.

-The BDB

Check this out right here!

Thank you Kurt Vonnegut for, in all likelihood, ruining my adolescent mind and setting me down the road towards iconoclastic literature, black humor, deeply rooted cynicism and skepticism, and planting a kernel in my mind that maybe I could wind up being a goddamn artist. The nice thing about words is that they live forever. Vonnegut is right there on my bookshelf, ready at any time to light up a Pall Mall and pontificate on just how exactly we're all missing the point.





So it goes...

-Ben

Here it goes.  Here it goes.  Here it goes again.  Like an ipod/nike comercial on Football Sunday, the Year of the Dirty is upon us again.  The Brothers Dirt are going to be dishing out some serious grub for you in 07.

Q:  What kind of grub?

A:  New music, videos, live performances, live videos, webcasts, dvds, t-shirts, hand grenades, Ben will rub your back.

Q:  Is Ben good like that?

A:  Completely.  He'll even do that happy ending thing if you say his full name three time fast.

Q:  That sounds great!  When can we expect all this new Dirtay?

A:  January 2007 will bring the release of the BDB's much anticipated, long awaited cd "Goobye Dominion".  They'll be a big ole' release party show and a live webcast performance for the peoples on the internets.

Q:  When is this rant going to end?

A:  When we say "Happy December!"  No go forth and multiply...  or add or whatever kind of math you can do.  It's good for the brain.