Bands You Don’t Know From Places You’ve Never Seen.

About the only good thing with My Space these days is the fact that you can pick up on some good and interesting music if you wander around for a bit. Sure My Space has become a rancid, ad filled ghetto - sure every time you log in you get 10 friend requests, and seven of em are from fake pictured girls named “Natasha” who’s profile always states “I like to have fun and take pictures” and then the link that leads to schizer porn, or something cuter.

But, BUT... as soon as you delete those folks (and hey, maybe don’t delete em, maybe click on em and have fun), you can wander around and check out these obscure, local bands who put their music up free to download and enjoy. Here’s a few from My Space, and from other places:

1. Tank Mountain Zoo - QP Crazy

QP Crazy - Fronted by the Crazy SKB (as mentioned by me in earlier posts) is insane japanese hardcore. If you clicked on the You Tube link, you’ve seen what they look like (think geisha vs punk), but the music is strangely competent in lieu of the weirdness in their presentation.

This track is oddly close to Master of Puppets era Metallica, enough so that you’d think it was a cover. It is thrash metal, or punk, or whatever people who like metal called Master of Puppets era Metallica. Sure it is in a different language, but HAVE YOU ever understood any of the songs in this genre without the aid of a lyric sheet? Regardless of the barriers, the music is oddly melodic - the vocals have a sheen on them that sounds rough and also underwater, the guitars veer from violent and fast to melodic and it’s definitely something interesting to listen to. For downloading purposes, go to I-Tunes, or wherever you get your MP3’s from and search away.

2. The Skuds: Hellbound.

The Skuds are a My Space find, so allow me to hit up their profile to get some info. They are from Georgia, they have an album called Annihilation coming out in March, 2008 and they consider themselves “thrash/punk.” Now that that is out of the way, here’s my view.

Say one day you wake up and decide that you wanna face your fear and do something really scary. bungie jump, walking on the ledge of a tall building, go that bar that you know bad shit goes on at, whatever. THIS is your perfect soundtrack. It is fast, the guy’s voice is blood curdling in it’s tenor, the guitars go from sounding like evil rockabilly to death metal, it is scitzhophrenic and it is really loud, angry and evil. And all of this is good. It’s not something that you can listen to 24/7, because it is intense and abrasive, but put this music on your MP3 player right when you get on the highway and you will have the power and inspiration to travel at blinding speeds and yell at everyone to move the fuck out of the way.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=6144136 - the My Space.

3. Solaris Earth Pipeline. Bright Green Cheville.

I’m not even sure of where I found this, but I believe it is My Space. The long and short of it is that it is really really out there, creative hip hop done by people who seem to love rap and wish to express that in their own vision. Their members are as follows: Raven of 1000 Feathers - lead wordsmith mangler, PSY-OPSogist - lead audiophile snippet molester Boogie Brown - do-it-all gap filler, Mike Gee - the postman & part-timer. Their call their sound “soul for the souless”, which is a good line.

Now I myself have no idea about any of that spiel on their My Space. What I will say is this: if you like rap, I mean really really dig it, you’ll at the very least appreciate this. The beats are really different and well executed, the rhymes are coming from a different style and very literal and well done and each song I have heard sounds different from the last. If you dig the backpacker rap, the MF Dooms, the Cannibal Ox, you’ll dig this.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=147750252 the My Space.

4. Jay-Z vs. Xiu Xiu: “I Do Brooklyn When I Want” - DJABX

MiMs vs. Interpol: “There’s No MIMS in Threesome” - DJ ABX

A few selections from the Hood Internet site (http://www.thehoodinternet.com/), one of the best sites on the interwebs for the mashup. Now, mash-ups got real popular a year or so ago and then it seemingly became played out. This is because of two real reasons: Linkin Park got involved, and the mash-ups that were out there weren’t that creative. For every Grey Album there was five occurrences of someone just slapping a rap track over a rock track and not mixing it up correctly.

The Hood Internet succeeds in making this an art form by actually chopping and mixing the indie rock into the blinged out rap. The two tracks I picked out here are the best example of what this site is about. Both rap tracks, especially the MIMS one are the clear example of “ringtone rap”, or a glossy, mainstreamed played out style. The bands underneath (in the MIM’s case, Interpol) are stylish and hip NYC goth rock. apart they don;t fit in the same room but with ABX’s touch “No MIM’s” comes off like some odd and parallel world in which vampires dance naked in strip clubs and thugs drink absinthe while throwing $100’s.

The Hood Internet has tons and tons of these, and full albums to download. And, the best part about this whole post - all of these songs I mentioned are completely free and legal.

http://www.thehoodinternet.com/2008/01/jay-z-vs-xiu-xiu.html - Jay Z vs Xiu Xiu

http://www.thehoodinternet.com/labels/interpol.html - MIMS vs Interpol.