Feel Good Friday: Holler Back

After an intense 3 week contract gig I am now properly unemployed, and as such able to write again. Pretty sweet timing with soccer starting back up this weekend and a proper slate of college football games rather than last week's appetizer plate of mismatches.

Today's Feel Good Friday is from a country band called The Lost Trailers. Why? Because I recently made the acquaintance of one of the members of this group and spent a week in his company, and 1) he is a great guy 2) he is a UGA alum and a Damn Good Dawg 3) he promised me after several beers that he would go with us to the Oregon-Georgia game in 2015. Seems good enough reasons to throw up a country song for the first time ever, no?




If this isn't your speed, there's always Fabolous.  Have a great weekend- enjoy the football and the futbol.

Feel Good Friday: Off I Go

Apologies for the radio silence; this week was beyond busy. I quit my job, and yesterday was my last day. Nope, I don't have another job lined up; work had just deteriorated to the point that I would rather be unemployed than continue to work there. After a couple weeks of detoxing I'll explore my options and begin the next hustle.

What does this mean for this place? It may mean more content and more often, since starting today my primary occupation is now: BLOGGER, but no guarantees. I'm hoping that starting next week I can actually put up content every day and get more than 10% of my ideas published.

In the spirit of setting off on new journeys, today's Feel Good Friday is "Off I Go" by Greg Laswell. Pretty much sums up where I'm at right now.  Enjoy, and have a great weekend.


Loose ends, they tangle down
And then take flight
But never tie me down
Never tie me down.

Off I go.
Where I fall
Is where I land.

Feel Good Friday: Planet Earth For Stoners

I was recently hipped to dub artist Liquid Stranger, who I must say is a pretty damn great if you're into dub/chill/downtempo music. One of my early favorites is Deep Down Below, both for the tune and the incredibly trippy and mesmerizing underwater video.


Planet Earth for stoners

I'm not a stoner, but damn watching this sober makes even me feel like buying and smoking an entire quarter sack, putting this video on repeat on the 50" plasma, sitting on the couch, and watching it for 6 hours straight.

Anyhow, enjoy, and have a great weekend.

Feel Good Friday: Crowded House Reggae Remix

For reasons I cannot clearly or concisely explain, this reggae remix of Crowded House's 80s hit "Don't Dream It's Over" was randomly happened across today by my coworker and became a massive and long-lasting hit in the office.


"Hey mon, heeeeey mon, don't dream it's over..."

Reminds me of driving around in Hawaii, as damn near every channel plays reggae or lite rock hits from yesteryear remixed as reggae. There are certainly worse things to me reminded of by a song that cruising down the road in Hawaii with the top down, your sweetie by your side, and a coconut water in your hand.

Anyhow, there it is. I think this song actually crosses the International Bad Line: it is so bad, that it actually rules. Have a great weekend.

Feel Good Friday: No More Trouble

Apologies for the lack of posting this week; I've been recovering from crazy travel adventures and also sick pretty much all week. Hopefully a weekend of rest and normal service can resume on Monday.

I leave you with Bob Marley & The Wailers live from Oakland Auditorium in 1979, performing War/No More Trouble, the latter of which sums up how my body is feeling today.



Take care, have a great weekend.

Feel Good Friday, USMNT Edition: Shutterbugg

Last week we dedicated Shine Blockas to the USMNT, and as expected they overcame adversity to become a national sensation. 5 minutes after their epic last minute win their sippin' on buds with Billy Clint & Reggie Bush in the locker room. Translation: instant rock stars.

So now they are grinding and shining, and now find themselves the targets of every camera lens in the world: Shutterbugs.


"Boi, it's after 12, club like a hive bee,
a bee hive cause now everybody vuvuzelas buzzin' around me..."

Shutterbug, as in another new but as yet unreleased track from the forthcoming(July 6) Big Boi CD Sir Luscious Leftfoot: Son Of Chico Dusty. Hopefully with all the attention from all those cameras they can keep it going; anything near Big Boi's performance on this record and Ghana will have work to do to keep the African flame alive at the World Cup.

Don't remember Billy Clint pounding brews with Kobe & Artest last week...

Feel Good Friday: In Retrospect, I Wish Vuvuzelas Were The Favors At Our Wedding

Noticed that little soccer ball that now appears on each and every one of the eleventy billion videos on YouTube? Well thanks can be directed to Mountain View, California because now you can take any video in the world and add the beautiful buzzing background of an army of vuzuvelas. Go ahead give it a try. It makes everything better, or at least funnier. Plus you can endlessly irritate the whiny little girls who won't stop complaining about a neighbors strange custom when they are in said neighbors house, which is pretty disrespectful- when in rome y'all, get over it.

It didn't take me 2 minutes to realize that we should have given everyone at our wedding one as the favor. But instead of traveling back in time as great expense and effort, we can just click on a little soccer ball and it's as if we did just that. Thanks, Google.


Double click to launch full YouTube version,
then press that little soccer ball in the bottom right of the video

Track Listing
Slightly Stoopid, 'Dancing Mood" intro
Gotan Project, 'Santa Maria' tango
Outkast, 'So Fresh, So Clean'
Outkast, 'Hey Ya!'
Unknown artist, Salsa
Stephen Colbert, Copyright Techo Remix
Vanilla Ice, 'Ice Ice Baby' outro

Feel Good Friday: USMNT Shine Blocka Edition

In honor of Team USA's massive shafting by an abjectly miserable referee from Mali and his crew, I present to you Shine Blockas by one of the biggest pimps in these United States, Big Boi.


"Tryin' to block my shine just ain't gonna to happen so don't try..."

Keep grinding USMNT, we're all proud of you especially the amazing comeback today. Karma is on your side now too, and now there's a huge opportunity to go through to the knockout round, so reach out and grab it.

Big Boi's long-awaited(2 years!) new album Sir Luscious Left Foot: The Son Of Chico Dusty drops July 6. No less than 5 tracks from it are already floating around on the interwebs, so I'm only going to say this one: get it on July 6; it's incredible- you're welcome in advance.

Feel Good Friday: I'm With Stoopid Edition

Good news: Slightly Stoopid's new album came out 2 weeks ago.

Great news: I'm going to the Slightly Stoopid concert tomorrow night at the famous Greek Theatre on the UC campus in Bezerkeley {Pepper and Sly & Robbie opening, and maybe even Expendables}.

Anyhow, here's my favorite of their latest batch of tunes, called "No Cocaine". Surely it's the stoner anthem of Summer 2008.



And as a little bonus, here is my favorite song of 2007, "2 am", which they performed live last August at the Summer Haze concert at the Greek with G Love & Ozomatli which I attended with The Hit and perhaps one day I'll write about and post some pics- it was pretty epic.



Both tunes are perfect laid back summer tunes, whether you're a total stoner or not {I'm not but I love their shit}.

Gotta rock the Kanu circa 2000 Arsenal kit tomorrow night; last spring in Petaluma the horn player wore a Zidane France jersey, which was oh so sweet, but then in midsummer up in Sacramento dude wore a freaking Spurs kit- sooooo weak. I had on Kanu that night but couldn't get close enough to talk shit or have him see it. Oh well, it's just nice to know that dude is a footy fan.

Have a great weekend, whether it involves laid back songs about ganja weed or not.

Peace.

Feel Good Friday: Royal Flush Edition

I give you "Royal Flush", the first single from Big Boi's forthcoming solo album {sometime this year, allegedly} that was leaked onto the internet a couple of months ago. With Andre 3000 and Raekwon featuring, it's like Aquemeni all over again. Like most efforts when Outkast's 2 pillars team up, it's damn good.

Enjoy, and Happy Weekend.

Feel Good Friday: Superhero Brother Edition

It's official: Superhero Brother is coming for your ass on June 24th.


Way cooler than Iron Man.

Who is Superhero Brother? Why G. Love of course, and along with his band Special Sauce this will be their 10th album. I have heard a few tracks from it and they are very, very good. I can't wait, and I already know that this will be my summertime all the time CD this year.

G. Love also just announced dates for a new tour this summer called the Block Party Tour with the John Butler Trio, but I'll let him tell it.


How many dudes you know that can play banjo & beat box?

I can't tell you how geeked I am that he is playing in San Francisco's Fort Mason near my apartment on August 31. The theater there only holds 370 people so I can only assume that he is going to play outdoors in the meadow with the bay and GGB as his backdrop. One thing is for sure: it won't suck.

And finally here is a cool promo vid from his last album- also outstanding- called Lemonade.



You can see all the tour dates, when he is coming to your town, and keep up with him- yeah, he blogs- on his official site, Philadelphonic. If you have never been to a G. Love show then get out and see you some hip-hop/blues this summer.

Feel Good Friday: SambaDa Edition

Last weekend I saw the self described brasilian/afro/samba/funk band SambaDa perform for the second time, at the DeYoung art museum of all places. They are local in that they were formed in Santa Cruz, but all of the members are Brasilians so I guess they aren't very local after all. The first time I saw then was at the famous Fillmore when they opened for Ozomatli, and they were amazing and really high energy; I figured they would be toned down considerably considering the venue. I was wrong- they were super high energy and totally rocked it again.

Anyhow, they are amazing, especially at live performance, where they intermittently get down off the stage and dance with the crowd, capped off by an impromptu capoiera performance during their encore. Also, they play the musical equivalent of Total Football, with many members switching instruments throughout the show. Lots of percussion, which is great, the saxophone player is exceptional can can flat out wail, and the lead female singer has a strong and very beautiful voice as well.

Unfortunately there are not any really good videos of them on the YouTubes, so the best thing is to go to their myspace page and listen to the songs in their jukebox {Beijo na Boca and Sambada Batucada are my favorites}. Here's a couple of videos that give a small taste but do not at all show how good this band is.





So crank up their music jukebox, get up out of your chair, shake your bunda and do a little impromptu freestyle samba dance. Home/work/whatever, you'll feel better afterwards. And if SambaDa comes to your town, then go see them for sure. Great music, high energy, and a fun time are guaranteed.

Bom dia!

Feel Good Friday: Stoopid Bonus

Since I didn't come with something new today, here's a little bonus for y'all.

Hadn't looked for Stoopid vids for a while, but there's now a vid with studio sound for one of their better tunes, "Closer To The Sun" from the album by the same name. Awesome acoustic guitar stringing by Myles.

Peace, and happy weekend.



"I think she beautiful, well that's for sure
Give a little loving, but I still gon need some more, I be
Stealing from the rich and then give it to the poor
Telling everybody it don't matter anymore, she said
All I really needed was a friend like you
Help me through and together we can change, but
If I was to stay it wasn't for too long
People sing the same song everywhere I'm going
Closer to the sun and far from the moon
People screaming out they gonna see me real soon, they say ooooh"

Feel Good Friday: Old Faithful

I don't care that I've used it a time or two before.

After a work week like this one, might as well go back to the tried and true, the one song that gets me from Stressville to Chill City faster than any other, "Mellow Mood" by Slightly Stoopid featuring G. Love and an awesome oceanside video with waves, surfing, dolphins, and the rest.


No song hits my tranquilo bone quite like this one, Bob Marley included

My favorite SS song, and maybe my favorite song in the whole wide world. Much needed on this Friday.

Have a great weekend whatever you get into. I hope to be back for the attack next week. Laters.

Feel Good Friday: John Cruz, Island Style

A few weeks ago I hipped you to a band called Bag Of Toys, a great local acoustic surf rock band that I saw at the Red Devil Lounge. They were great, I bought their CD, and I have been digging on their music since then.

So I was excited to learn that they were playing last night at The Independent and opening for a dude named John Cruz, with whom I was not very familiar before. But Hawaiian chill acoustic guitar singer/songwriter is right up my alley, and I'd been listening to his stuff on myspace all week and digging it.

Well after last night's show I can honestly say that John Cruz is probably the best Grammy winning singer/songwriter/acoustic guitar slayer that no one has ever heard of. Bag of Toys was very good, but John Cruz fucking killed it. Dude came out and played his entire set by himself. No backup, no band, nothing: just him and his acoustic guitar, for over an hour. He was incredible, especially considering how hard it is to be that good when you are doing it all yourself, and don't even have a percussionist making a beat for you. Then he brought Bag Of Toys out to back him on on a couple of songs, and they ripped it. John even broke his bottom guitar string but kept on going without missing a beat- he played 2 more songs with only 5 strings, then did his solo encore with the lead singer from Bag Of Toys guitar- great stuff. We drank, we danced, we had a wonderful time. I bought both his CDs and would see him again in a heartbeat if he played anywhere near where I was.

Anyhow, his most famous song is "Island Style", and although it cannot be embedded, by far the best version of it is the video on his official site which you can check out here. Seriously, I challenge you to listen to it/watch the vid and not be in a better mood. No really. Go watch it and then tell me you are not in a more chill, better place.

Through the power of embedded video I can share with you him performing Island Style here, and below with fellow Hawaiian native Jack Johnson at the 2007 Kokua Festival.






But make no mistake, he ain't no one trick pony. Lots of great tunes, both jammin' ones and beautiful ones- "Shine On" is a particularly beautiful love song. And in concert he just rocks the living shit out of the acoustic. I talked to him after the show and he was just as humble and chill as you would expect from a Hawaiian dude.

I think World Champion surfer Kelly Slater says it best:

"Anyone I play John's CD for, everyone says, I love that, I need to have that, what is that, who is that? I'm like, come on man, that's John Cruz, what are you talking about? You gotta get this CD. It is just a matter of people hearing him and getting him out there that way because it's the type of music that speaks to everyone."

Couldn't have said it better. While I absolutely love finding new, kind of unknown artists, it is truly saddening that artists like John Cruz, whose music is better than 99% of the crap on commercial radio, is a virtual unknown, but everyone constantly hears and knows about no talent ass clowns like Ashley Simpson.

If you are into the chill, the acoustic, the surf, good ass singer/songwriter, the Hawaiian, then check him out and add his music to your arsenal, for real.

Feel Good Friday: "Can I Kick It?" Edition

Work/life kicking my arse last couple of days, but there's a lot in the pipeline for next week...

There are lots of classic hip hop songs out there, as well as lots of great songs that are remakes of other songs, but rare is the combo of great original and multiple great remixes of said classic.

Anyhow, today's Feel Good Friday comes courtesy of G Love, who in addition to being a total badass musician also blogs and uploads tons of impromptu vids to youtube when he's on tour.

Here's a homemade version of "Can I Kick It" made a few days ago in Brisbane, Australia with Slim Kid Tre from the Pharcyde {and currently Ozomatli}, and featuring a sweet outro of G. Love's alter ego, Spoonie G, tearing it up on a pair of plastic spoons on the tour bus:


It's not enough that dude invented his own
genre of music {the hip hop blues}, can slay the guitar
and the harmonica, but now we learn that he can beat box
and play the spoons as well. Bow down.

As an added bonus, here's Slim Kid Tre rapping a verse from Pharcyde's "Passing Me By" while on stage with G. Love doing another rendition of "Can I Kick It?" during last summer's amazing Summer Haze tour {Ozomatli, G Love, Slightly Stoopid} when they were in Costa Mesa {night before I saw them at The Greek in Bezerkeley}:



And since it's March Madness {yeah I said it, fuckers. sue me}...

Double Bonus:

Although vey low-fi, this is G. Love and Slightly Stoopid together doing the finale to G. Love's set on the Summer Haze tour stop in Boca Raton, FL last year, which started off as G. Love's song "Blues Music" then morphed into "Walk On The Wild Side" and then finally "Can I Kick It?". Low quality sound, but high quality muzak, and the horns are tight:



Oh, yeah, if you're not down with Tribe, here's the original:


Classic. Timeless.

And to complete the theme, the outstanding "22 Twos" by Jay-Z:


Sometime Jay-Z hits, sometimes he misses.
This was a stand up triple.

However you kick it, have a rocking good weekend, whatever you get into.

Feel Good Friday: Thicker Than Water Edition

At long last, I finally watched Jack Johnson's first surf movie, Thicker Than Water, tonight. It's great, even better than the soundtrack which I have been listening to for a couple of years now.

Try to watch these clips and be in a bad mood. I dare you.


"The Cove" by Jack Johnson


"Even After All" by Finley Quaye {full version of this great song here}


"Thicker Than Water" by Todd Hannigan

I failed my New Year's Resolution from 2007 to try surfing, but lately I really have the bug, although I would really prefer to learn initially in trunks only rather than the full on wetsuit required in these parts. This year is already booked up with vacation, but I think I have decided to celebrate my 35th birthday in Feb 2009 by going to Hawaii and learning to surf.

Anyhow, these vids and music are just what you need for Friday- muy tranquilo.

Have a great weekend, whatever you get into.

Feel Good Friday: Bag Of Toys Edition

Last night I went and checked out this band called Bag Of Toys, a band whose tagline is "acoustic surf rock that doesn't suck" and whose album is titled "Nooner" {respek}. That alone had me interested, as acoustic surf rock is right up my alley- plus they are a local band from SF trying to make a name for themselves and seem to be on the verge of bigger things. They were very good. Apparently they are starting to become an up and coming group, and their song "Share" was recently featured in a commercial for the Zune.


"Acoustic surf music that doesn't suck" = right up my alley

If you like Sublime/Slightly Stoopid/Expendables or even Jack Johnson then you'll probably dig these guys, and you can get in on the ground floor in the event that they blow up.

I really dig the first tune off their first album, which is called "Surf Song". Here's the studio version of the tune set to some random dudes surfing:


Makes Cubicle Land more bearable for 4 minutes

Here's the full version of "Share"- there aren't any other studio version of their tunes on the interwebs other than their myspace page, but I bought their album last night and it's really quite good. Definitely worth $10 to check out their show if they come to your town.

Happy Friday and have a great weekend, whatever you get into.

Feel Good Friday: Raising Hell Edition

Oh, you wanted music for Feel Good Friday? Right...

I was also reminded today, thanks to iTunes shuffle, just how awesome a tune My Adidas by RUN-D.M.C. is:


Before corporate selling out, they flipped it
on it's head and pimped what they liked for no pay

And that always leads to Peter Piper, which bats leadoff on Raising Hell and 22 years later is still one of the greatest rap songs of all time


A great tune about JMJ: RIP.

Happy Weekend.

Laters.

Feel Good Friday: Tecmo Bowl Edition

Remember this???


Even better than "rubble-ribble"
*note: that's Tecmo Super Bowl above; they didn't have the original on the youtubes :(

If you're +/- 5 years of my age, then this was one of the crowning achievements of your youth: Tecmo Bowl, in all of it's 8-bit beauty. Ahh the memories... Jack Trudeau's super slow ass rainbow lobs, hearing "Ready! Down! Hut! Hut! Hut! Hut! Hut! Hut!" while you switched to your preferred dude on defense 100 times in 15 minutes, halftime leads of 70-0, all of it.

Many thanks to SMQ for taking me down memory lane and reminding me how wonderful this game was with this video of what has to be the greatest TD run in Tecmo Bowl history:



That's Bo Jackso, one of the 2 uber-legends of the game, who was simply programmed to be that much better than anyone else to where he could do anything. He'll always be Bo Jackso because my old ass TV when I was a kid cut off his name when it was in the upper right {I played against him more than with him}. The other legend of course, was LT, who got an extra few lines of coke from the programmers which made him unfair fast- in fact, he was really the only one who could stop Bo Jackso.

Me? I liked playing with the 49ers, because by the quirks of the programming of the game, the crossing pattern to Roger Craig was simply uninterceptable {-ible? guess it doesn't matter when you are making up your own words} and with them I was damn near invincible.

This last vid made me think of how much more fun it would have been, in a different way, had it come out when I was an adult that when I was a kid, as Tecmo Bowl pretty much predated F-bombs for me:



I think the next time I am back at Club Mom & Dad the NES is coming out.