His genres may range from World War II westerns to martial-arts, revenge epics to Grindhouse, exploitation-inspired, slasher flicks, but Quentin Tarantino’s signature directing style is like a blinking, whooping, neon sign. From the first scene, he transports us to another world that is very much his own. From the dialogue to his personal tastes in movies, music, comics and random stuff like cars and outfits to the teeniest props, not one of the meticulous details is an accident. There always seems to be a story behind something as seemingly trivial as a strategically placed styrofoam cup or the hairstyle a minor character might be sporting or even the color of a car. That is why his movies are so captivating; once the initial shock and awe dies down, the minute attention to detail has only just started to register. And we can’t help but keep coming back to try take it all in. Here are some random facts for your viewing pleasure. So ramblers, let’s get ramblin’!

1. Tarantino was thanked in the liner notes of Nirvana’s final studio album In Utero, though his name was spelled differently. In response, he thanked Nirvana on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack and added RIP Kurt. There’s a rumor Kurt & Courtney turned down an offer to act in Pulp Fiction as Lance & Jody. QT says this isn’t true, Kurt just really loved Reservoir Dogs.

2. His movies are known to always contain at least one scene that focus on women’s feet. He is, as Jules boasts in Pulp Fiction, “the foot fucking master”. He admitted that he does have an appreciation for feet in an interview. Check out this post on RopeOfSilicon.com that talks about his fetish with clips of the scenes in question.

3. He has acted in TV shows and movies. On the small screen, he has been on The Golden Girls as an Elvis impersonator, All American Girl, and Alias. He has had several roles in his own and other directors such as his BFF Robert Rodriquez projects. Sometimes he gives himself tiny sneaky cameos like the electronic voice on Jackie Browne’s answering machine, the very first scalping shown in Inglourious Basterds on a dead Nazi is a dummy made in his likeness and when Uma Thurman’s Bride stands over the remains of the Crazy 88s, a masked Quentin Tarantino is among them.

4. He hates product placement and makes up his own brands instead, which adds to his movies’ surreal feel. On a different note, has anybody else ever craved a Kahuna Burger?? I do everytime it pops up on screen – and yes I know how crazy that sounds. Oo and maybe I could wash away my Kahuna burger with a nice refreshing glass of butterbeer from The Three Broomsticks. Yum.

Fictional product placement:
Kahuna burger
Red apple cigarettes
Fruit Brute and Kabooom! (both cereal brands really existed in the seventies)
G.O. Juice
Teriyaki Donuts
Jack Rabbit Slims

5. Quentin Tarantino wrote the character Mr. Pink from Reservoir Dogs for himself and told Steve Buscemi the only way he would give away the role was if he blew him away in the audition. And the rest is history.

6. Some movies Quentin Tarantino will supposedly be working on:
Kill Bill 3 is said will be ready for the public in 2014.
Remakes of cult hits:
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
Come Drink With Me

7. QT movie stats:
Reservoir Dogs:
How many times did the word “fuck” feature in the film – 272
Body count – 16

From Dusk Till Dawn:
Body count – 122

Kill Bill:
Body count – 95
At a measly 17, this is the first movie that features less than a 100 “fucks”.
Over 450 gallons of fake blood were used on the two movies.

Deathproof:
Fucks – 144
Body count – (gasp) only 6!

Inglourious Basterds:
Body Count – 76

OK, so I don’t have all the stats from all his movies, but the powers that be (movie dorks/accountants) have not revealed the stats of the other movies and I sure as hell am not going to count them …

8. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is not fond of red blood. It’s OK if it’s grey though, which is supposedly why the big Crazy 88 fight scene is shot in black and white. And also why the blood stains on Uma’s clothes in the trailer are poopie brown (much better) or black. In fact, Kill Bill was the first movie to be subjected to the MPAA’s no blood policy for trailers – a policy they came up with after watching the original Kill Bill trailer …

9. Tarantino’s movies are often linked together in the oddest ways. Sometimes by a certain line, sometimes through a specific outfit (the suit that Jackie Brown buys is the same that Mia Wallace wears in Pulp Fiction). In Deathproof one of the characters’ ringtone is the whisteled tune from Twisted Nerve, also used in Kill Bill. I really love it when he links the different worlds through family bonds. Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs real name is Vic Vega. This is the same surname as Vince from Pulp Fiction. Tarantino has revealed that Vic and Vince are brothers. He also had plans to do a prequel to both films called Double V Vega, which would have starred the Michael Madsen and John Travolta, but last we heard he has abandoned the project altogether.

10. He is known for making oddball agreements with his friends in da biz: Robert Rodriguez scored Kill Bill for one dollar. Quentin Tarantino repaid him by directing a scene in Rodriguez’s movie Sin City for one dollar. Robert Kurtzman did the special make-up effects for Reservoir Dogs, on the condition that Quentin Tarantino write a script for From Dusk Till Dawn based on a story by Kurtzman.

New year, new month, new band day. And the new band in question is a doozy, let me tell ya! Dragging Pianos from Queensland, Australia is – as far as I can tell – one man named Sam, and according to his myspace his buds help him along. His debut EP’s called The Food Chain and the title song is oh so pretty. How pretty, you ask? If it was a girl she’d be running around scantily clad in a Lenny Kravitz video. That pretty. As per usual I know very little else about the band so if you know more, please do pay it forward.

We are pulled in by a wistful female voice accompanied by a banjo which create a warm yet melancholy mood. Meanwhile, the sparse lyrics are merely there to highlight the song’s echo-y rhythm and the end result is as hypnotizing and enchanting as a constantly repeated mantra. Judging solely by this song this band doesn’t seem to need fancy tricks to create a wonderfully complicated landscape, but manages to still sound very much homemade. I really hope it promises more beautiful things to come.

Do you ever look something up online and take so many strange turns that you end up reading up on a topic that has nothing even remotely to do with the original search? Me, ALL the time – it’s like wiki-ADD. The other day I started off wanting to know why Pluto (the dwarf planet, not the Disney dog) was demoted only three years ago.* Somehow, and I can’t for the life of me remember how, I’ve become an expert on where the phrase ‘mama-se, mama-sa, mama-makossa’ comes from. True story! Well, I say “expert”, I mean I now know as much as the person who wrote the Wikipedia entry.

You may have heard the phrase around the playground, it’s been used by a plethora of artists as varied as the Blood Hound Gang and Rihanna. I first heard it in Michael Jackson’s “Wanna Be Startin’ Something” and have been trying to get it out of my head since that first listen years and years ago. I found out that Makossa is a musical style popular in West and Central Africa in which traditional African music is mixed with Jazz, Highlife and Soul. Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango popularized the sound with his hit, “Soul Makossa”, now known as a forerunner of disco.

The single was originally a B-side and released in 1972. David Mancuso, the New York based, self-proclaimed “musical host” used to spin records in his building at the very first, underground dance parties, known as The Loft. To this day, he refuses to call himself a DJ, but he is slowly being recognized as a major influence in the history of the DJ. Anyhoo, he got a hold of a copy and started playing it regularly at these underground, Loft parties. The song became high in demand but there were only a handful of copies, so it was sold out in a jiffy. The smart people at Atlantic licensed it and reproduced it en masse, but not before a couple dozen other bands had covered and released the song, trying to hitch a ride on its popular coattails. Moreover, artists have been using “mama-se, mama-sa” in some form or another ever since, and continue to do so.

The original Manu Dibango song is ridiculously catchy and so freakin’ funky it’s gonna makes you want to cut a rug, heck make that twelve rugs. It doesn’t take any stretch of the imagination to see why this song is known as a prime example of proto-disco.

Here are some songs that perpetuate the popularity of the phrase:

*In the unlikely event anyone was reading this hoping for an answer to the Pluto question: it wasn’t till 2006 that the term “planet” was first truly defined by the International Astronomical Union. Pluto only covers two out of three criteria that make a planet a planet and ever since it gets bullied by the other 8 proper planets. Poor, tiny Pluto.

Ho-ho-holy crap, can you believe how warm it still is at this time of year? There may be a distinct lack of frost, sleighs and snowmen and I haven’t once put on thermal socks, but it still is coming on the holiday season, which means it’s time for 100bells!

This song is as undrippy as a Christmas song can get with lyrics like “I wrecked your daddy’s car and went down on your mother” – sung by Cyndi Lauper, no less! Maybe not the most Christmassy of sentiments, but just focus on the jolly bells and the happy tunes if you’re disturbed by the images conjured up by the words. I never thought The Hives and one of my fave eighties icons would pair up but pair up they did and the result is as entertaining and cheery as I expected, but with a slightly disturbing twist. In one word: Santastic. Yeh … I really just said that and I’m sticking with it.

A few months ago, I came across a long list of records from as early as 1916 that were contenders for the title ‘First Rock N Roll Record’. A closer look at the artists and songs mentioned revealed they were each one of them seriously considered. I did know that the genre’s origins are still a topic of hot debate between those who believe it’s an amalgam of white and black traditional styles from the southern US and those who are of the opinion it’s a populist, white twist to Rhythm & Blues. But I genuinely thought it was decided that either Elvis’ “That’s Alright Mama” or Bill Haley’s “Rock Around The Clock”, both from 1955, first introduced, or at least popularized the genre to the general public. I had no idea there are 63 songs, spanning five decades that all, in some measure, deserve an honorable mention in the search for the true Rock ‘N Roll pioneer. Though even The King himself once said Rock ‘N Roll was here a long time before he came along.

It made me want to learn more about these records. I will be talking about my findings in chronological order in (hopefully) regular posts. I will be going by the list on the Wikipedia, so it might not be complete, but it’s more than enough to get me started. I know many-a book has been expertly written on the subject, but why read those when you can give my simplistic, amateur-ish attempts at tackling the matter a glance?

Here it is, the oldest record to get a shot at the title:

Who, what, wear, when?
“The Camp Meeting Jubilee” was distributed by Little Wonder Records in 1916 and was sung by an unnamed quartet. Little Wonder Records were the first company to make records cheaply – around 10 cents a record – which made them accessible to all layers of society. Little is known of the artists, because they were mostly uncredited on these discs. All we know with some certainty is that they’re four black men.

Why was it in the running?
It is in the list because it is the first on record to mention the phrase ‘rocking and rolling’. Morgan Wright over at HoyHoy.com tells us that the term has been around for centuries and can be found in literature as far back as the 17th century. It was originally a nautical term that described a ships swaying motions. Eventually, it came to be used in black American spirituals. “Rocking” was the word used to describe the feeling when the spirit got a hold of you. So before 1947 the only people rockin’ and a-rollin’ were black gospel singers. The lyrics in question:

We’ve been rockin’ ‘n rolling in your arms,
Rockin’ and rolling in your arms,
Rockin’ and rolling in your arms,
In the arms of Moses.

Why did it come up short?
Since it was used in a religious sense it’s far removed from the Rock ‘N Roll as Alan Freed (contrary to popular belief he didn’t coin the phrase, but he regularly used it on his popular radio show, cementing it as the name for the exciting new youth-oriented music) meant it, which has sexual and rebellious connotations. It ushered in a new era where kids rule popular culture and decided their interests and lives are totally seperate from their parents’. So rocking and rolling in the arms of Moses just won’t do, I’m afraid.

Listen to the very poor quality original recording of the song. It’s an endearing spiritual that has nothing to do with the later musical genre. Nonetheless, simply being the first to mention the words on vinyl was enough to make it into the history books. I love the idea that families sat around and listened to this record, because it sure sounds peculiar to my modern ears – fun and fascinating but definitely odd. In the middle of the song it’s suddenly religious question and answer time, which is as amusing as it is educational. I so love the reaction to ‘did you ever hear tell of the devil?’. Brrrrrrrr…

Next time on 100barrelhouse: Trixie Smith’s 1922 record “My Man Rocks With Me (With One Steady Roll)”.

On its own the song is just a funny bit of novelty blues, but, good lord, combined with this performance by Screamin’ Jay and his crazy, crazy eyes, the manic whoops and oh yeah, that skull he keeps waving about, it gets an intensely frightening new layer. And I haven’t even started on the last thirty seconds of the video where he starts speaking in tongues, or whatever that is. It’s probably supposed to be funny, but I’m pooping my pants, man! He’s an incredible entertainer and he plays the role of bizarro court jester / Voodoo priest like this is just the way he is when he falls out of bed in the morning, or a coffin, or hanging upside down in a damp, dark place. I almost don’t want to look directly at the man in fear of an actual spell on meehee – I LOVE it!

Two weeks ago Bean and I went to see The Dodos play. They were amazing and the new songs are spectacular live. So the whole experience was wonderful; great band, great company, great venue … Except for one thing, the guy standing next to me had ehm, terrible BO. I don’t know how to put it delicately but it was very unpleasant. Bean stood on the other side and turned to me at one point and asked, does that guy smell like cat pee? He did. This brings me to the following: Concert etiquette. It’s a common subject among music bloggers, but I have specific concert moments that illustrate the need for these unwritten rules. I’m not trying to take the rawness and Rock ‘n Roll out of the concert experience, but we all pay good money to see our favorite bands, so let’s all try to do our bit to make the night fun for everyone, that includes the person standing next to you. It doesn’t take much either, sometimes it’s as small as using deodorant. So I came up with ten things I’ve learned in my years of concert going, using real-life examples. In case you were wondering, the following things have actually happened to me:

1. Cat pee guy, for real man, Axe it up a little. A must for any concertgoer, even if you’ve had your sweat glands surgically removed, it might not have took. So please, be it stick or spray, cleanse them pits.

2. Then there was the guy who decided it’d be funny to serenade his friend as loudly as he could, of course all right in front of me. I don’t mind people singing along, I encourage it even. I love when the audience participates, but the room was quiet otherwise. You know when you give that exasperated, knowing nod to your fellow bus passengers when some insane person tries to start a fight with the driver because he thinks his grocery receipt could double as a bus pass? That’s what I got from every person around me, it made me start laughing hysterically because it was so surreal. I came to see The Magic Numbers sing “Wheels On Fire” not some preppy dude who had one too many appletinis.

3. What I learned from the man who played air drums at the Black Keys concert: I’m a big fan of people playing invisible instruments, but try to keep the injuries to the people around you to a minimum.

4. To everyone who still uses flash to take pictures at concerts. All your highlighting are the pretty heads of hair in front of you, so what the dilly yo?

5. I’m reluctant to say this but it has to be said. The dry-humping couple at the festival while we were waiting for Interpol to come out. Don’t do that. Not ever. Not while humans with eyes are right there. Thank you on behalf of people.

6. Then there are the groups of people who decide that a concert would be a great place to catch up on what their buddy’s been up to since they came back from backpacking through Central Asia. Loudly. You may not care for that particular song, but others do. I’m sure your lives are oh-so-interesting, but take it outside, go to a bar, leave. Do not try to yell over the music, because you’re not the only one doing that and the only thing that should be deafening is the band on stage, not your shrieking self.

7. Support the support band. I’m sure they know that you didn’t come to see them and their awesome beat poetry act. You don’t have to like it, but do the neighborly thing and have a little respect. This is their big night too. There IS an addendum: there are support bands that are so disgustingly arrogant (and not in a good way, see the band who supported Maximo Park two years ago. Oh yeah, I’m naming names.) and practically bending backwards to kiss their own behinds, in spite of their generic sound, that you cannot help but want to bring them down a peg. Then by all means, roll your eyes and withhold your claps. That’ll teach ‘em.

8. To the super drunk / high girl who tried to clumsily and wobbly dance with the embarrassed and puzzled guy in front of me: As you were. I loved when the guy turned to me and my friend and asked whether we knew her. We did not, but that shiz was hilarious. Though I really wish she hadn’t stomped on both my feet. Twice. I would love to know how much she remembered from that night the next morning.

9. When you come in late, don’t try to push your way forward aggressively and stand in front of the people who came early to get a nice spot because they’re vertically challenged (not me, I’m tall and majestic like a giraffe … yeah that’s a lie). I feel kind of bad for the guy who forced himself on top of the step I was standing on during a Kings Of Leon concert a few years ago. We didn’t find out until after the concert that we – Bean, aDawgg and myself – had all decided to teach that fool a lesson. We triple-teamed him and we didn’t even know it. Yes, it’s crowded, yes I had a nice spot, but he was really, really rude about it and he was tall. So whenever there was clapping we “accidentally” smacked and pushed him a little bit … I also may have stood on his heel, okay heels … but I will deny that on the stand. Needless to say, we won back our territory. Hey man, it’s a jungle out there.

10. If you absolutely have to crowd-surf to get that ultimate rawk high, then fine. But I think it was at a Datsuns’ concert, immediately after a shoe hit my head, that I found out that crowd surfing is really only fun for the surfer, not the crowd. Oh and I can’t help it, but I still think it’s really, really, really funny whenever the audience decides to split like the Red Sea when someone leaps off stage … right into the void. Hee.

OK that’s all for now, but we’re going to go see Patrick Wolf next week (woohoo!), so I’ll let you know if I learn anything new …

A few weeks ago, Bean wrote a very cool post that linked The Raveonettes to Twin Peaks. I never really made a connection between a piece of music and a seemingly unrelated TV show that way until I heard “Revival”. I’m still sad that Carnivale, the HBO show set during the Great Depression which was canceled after only two seasons, never got the chance to tell the rest of its complicated story. I used to love the menacing, religious feel of the show.

I think Soulsavers‘ beautiful “Revival”, from their 2007 album It’s Not How Far You Fall, It’s the Way You Land, has the exact same effect the show had. A gospel choir sings over a slow and spooky rhythm and seems to announce either the apocalypse or the Second Coming; either way something epic is about to happen. Meanwhile, Mark Lanegan’s deep, raspy voice beautifully highlights the darkness that undermines the hopeful lyrics. Come to think of it, this song would work particularly well as the theme song of one of the most memorable characters from the show: the fantastically, frightening, evil preacherman, Brother Justin Crowe. I think it gives an accurate taste of the holy creepiness of the character, and his contradictory role as a conduit for God and his secret calling as the vessel of the upcoming darkness. If you miss the show as much as I do, then sit back, listen to the song and let the dust wash over you.

Soundtrack Day is an older 100b category that I had to bring back for this post, because this song is definitely a part of my personal soundtrack. Indonesia’s day of independance is celebrated on August 17th, but we will be celebrating the joyous freedom of my motherland this saturday. And by “celebrating”, I mean eat. I thought it’d be fun to introduce Indonesia’s flavours to my 100buddies with a grand feast … assuming I don’t burn the food and bring shame to my country. I always talk about how I would love to live in Spain for a year or some other exotic country, but never Indonesia. And yet when I haven’t been there for a while I get homesick for a country I’ve never even lived in. I miss absolutely everything about Indonesia; from the language, to the nature, to the heat, to the smells on the street. It even turns me all poetic and stuff. It’s been four years since I was there last and I miss it dearly. I may not live there or even consider it as a country of residence at the moment, but it’s never far from me.

This song, by the mega popular band Ada Band, was a huge hit four years ago. It is a bit of sentimental, pop rock, but it makes the memories of that vacation so vivid. The title literally means stupid person, it’s about a man who’s being played by the woman he loves. It’s not an especially remarkable song, it’s not a ground-breaking sound, you can’t dance to it, and most of you would probably forget it the moment it’s over, but it means the world to me. Oh yeah my people LOVE karaoke … if you wanna bypass all the amateurish introductory stuff, the song starts 44 seconds into it.

I was sad to learn that Willy Deville passed away two days ago. He was the frontman of Mink DeVille, who were part of the CBGB scene. They were, however, the odd man out in this early punk setting, because they had more in common with classic soul and R&B acts. Their sound was a mix of ’50s Rock n Roll, blues, soul, and they had some very theatrical, mariachi and even French Cajun influences as well. It was a really fun and unique band and Willy DeVille was an incredibly enigmatic performer.

This song, written in 1978 for the soundtrack of the movie Cruising, is wonderful.

Thanks to the crispy, crispy, credit crunch, I’ve had to drastically change the way I buy music. I – and I think it’s no different for my fellow 100b chums – pick and choose and whittle down, and I mean waaay down, the list of albums. So the ones I select for the Merry Month are the best ones I’ve heard, but aren’t necessarily the best of what came out. On the other hand, singles have become really important to me these days.

OK, so first up my pick for best album:

The Dead Weather, Horehound

Some of the best things happen when great things merge: Lennon & McCartney, ice cream & bananas, Asterix & Obelix (oh man, I used to love that comic), M&M…s, ebony & ivory etc. So too is the teaming of the two most prominent band members of The Dead Weather, especially, a thing of beauty. We are not shy of our love for both The White Stripes and The Kills, and when I first heard of the supergroup my brain could not comprehend that much awesome. Horehound has provoked praise and criticism in equal measures and, after listening to it, I can see why. On their own, the two bands make their own special kind of magic but have an equally dark, sensual power. Combined, they’ve created a seperate sound that may not be to your liking if you were expecting something resembling either band. Like the bands that bore its members, The Dead Weather are raw, oozing with sex, and play stripped-down and dirty rock, but nonetheless bring something new and exciting to the table.

July had some really amazing singles. I tried to make it a more aesthetically pleasing list of five, but I couldn’t bring myself to scrap one from the list.

Here are my six favorite singles of the month:

Ah Patrick Wolf, he is my style icon. Hm, that makes me sounds about fourteen. Oh well, I never said that my thoughts went any deeper than “I wonder if my pink nail polish clashes with my shoes?”. I just love that he is as fearless and creative in the way he dresses as in his music. The Bean has listened to his new album and loves it; I haven’t had the pleasure yet, but I’m already mighty impressed with what I’ve heard. This single is extravagant and gets the blood pumping with its nervy rhythms and string section and sweeping gospel choir. For full effect, check out the visually stunning video.

I was gonna save this band for a New Band Day post, but I don’t wanna. This song is a big old raucous mess with a poppy disposition and an infectious enthusiasm. The boy/girl vocals combine a catchy chorus with some high-energy story telling. It’s still unpolished, but they have an endearing quality that’s hard to resist. Learn more about the band at their MySpace.

San Francisco’s Girls are ready for greatness with their debut single “Hellhole Ratrace”. It’s pretty and melancholy but doesn’t wallow in self-pity. The lead singer’s Elvis Costello-y voice, sweetly repeats that he wants someone to dance with. This is a mellow song that’ll stick in your brain for days. The lonely voice, bells and the lazily picked electric guitar turn into a beautiful wave of sound towards the end. I started out a bit indifferent, but by the time the hand claps began I was in.

This song is freaking brilliant, and perfect for summer. Those of you who have been following Voluntary Butler Scheme will probably know it. I even mentioned it in a fangirlie post about the band last year and really nothing’s changed. It’s still more fun than most new bands ever hope to be, but makes it seem so easy. It’s part Jackson Five, part I’m From Barcelona, and all kinds of fun.

Short but sweet and slowly turning into my favorite single of the month. “Fortune Teller” has a strong rhythm and a singer who sounds strangely detached. It seems to stop in the middle of the song, which made me listen to it again and again, like there was a mystery to solve. It’s definitely intriguing and I like it more the more I listen to it. The New York band started making music only a year ago and their debut album came out a little over two weeks ago. Learn more here.

The Boy Least Likely To – When Life Gives Me Lemons, I Make Lemonade

If anything, you have to watch the video. It’s exactly as adorable as the song. It’s classic Boy Least Likely To. Cute, quirky and catchy, but never ever over the top. Their songs are like a puppy with antlers, you wanna hug them to death, but they have an edge and a weirdness that keep you fascinated and utterly delighted.

I’ve said it before, but I have the worst case of arrested development I know. The other day I was telling Bean about an episode of Tom And Jerry that I really really loved. I feel for her, because talking to me must be like talking to a five-year-old sometimes. Anyway, I was never even a fan of the cartoon, but the episode called Pecos Pest is one of my all-time favorite things. The reason for that, is Jerry’s stuttering Uncle Pecos from Texas and his incredible musical talent. He visits Jerry because he is about to go on a television show to play an awesome song called “Crambone” on his gee-tar.

The voice of Uncle Pecos was provided by none other than Shug Fisher, or Shorty Kellems on the Beverly Hillbillies. How cool is that?? I thought it was wicked cool, even though I’ve never seen a single episode of the Beverly Hillbillies. Whatever your feelings about Tom & Jerry or the Beverly Hillbillies, the song is definitely worth checking out. Uncle Pecos mutters, chuckles and scats his way through it, and adds that little bit of magic that raises it from a joke to an absolute classic in my book. I especially love when he stop in the middle of performing, turns to his n-n-n-nephew and says he’s skipping the yodeling because it’s too high for him.

This is the song taken from the cartoon. I love it so much, I’m ashamed to admit, I made it my ringtone … I don’t even wanna know how lame that makes me, and I think I can actually hear you losing whatever respect you might have for me. I don’t care, I’m just happy I can enjoy it regularly.

But if you’re not as obsessed as I am, watching a video of Uncle Pecos strutting his stuff might be enough:

When my brother and I were little we used to get a slice of ham from our local butcher, just because we were cute and vertically challenged. I found ham has never tasted as good as it did then, and I think it has everything to do with the fact that it was a free surprise. I felt the same way about the songs I found in my inbox a few weeks ago (yeah, I’m a little backed up). Rough Trade sent around an email to promote Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros’ (then) upcoming debut album, including three free sample songs. At first I was so delighted with the lyrical equivalent of free ham, I thought maybe that’s why these songs sound so great. No-no-no, these songs are genuinely beautiful, and who am I to deny you all three delicious gems?

I must admit, I throw the old familiar superlatives around a lot, so you might be a bit sceptical. Which is why I wish I could force people to listen to these songs – you know, like in the Ludovico aversion therapy scene in Clockwork Orange, except with wonderful songs rather than disturbing images. The song that I’d play, while you were strapped in my chair, would definitely be “40 Day Dream”. It’s reminiscent of The Beatles’ post-Revolver psychedelic, infectious happy raucous of voices, strings, piano, home-made beats that carry the carefree lyrics, a killer chorus and that magical, magical mystery, that is love and peace and … basically all that flower-power hippie crap we secretly really wished we could have experienced the first time around. Their debut came out earlier this week so if you, my dear droogs, love these songs, go pick up their pop-disk Up From Below.

I haven’t been this excited about a new band in a while! I came across London three-piece The Loveburns earlier today and was immediately hooked. This band has a truly unique sound which they call “zombie lullabies for the darleck dancing generation”. They certainly know their way around a rockabilly beat, but manage to sound like they’ve rediscovered the early incarnations of punk tucked away in the corners of an abandoned haunted house turned electro art pop venue … Yeah, you know what, they already described their tunes best so my sad, abstract attempts and everything else that comes after the zombie lullabies quote can be ignored. Before you do that, let me say one more thing, run on over to iTunes, Amie Street, eMusic, or Amazon for their debut single “Detector”. It’s deliciously dark, dirty and bluesy, but be sure to go to their MySpace and listen to “Reality Land”, “Profit Margin” and the hypnotizingly weird “Adoration”. These songs made me drop whatever I was doing and write up this fuzzy little post.

In the 1960s a string of romantic comedy musicals came out known as the Beach Party films. They’re aimed at teens (yeah, it’s teen week at 100b) and starred Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon. Frankie and Dee Dee’s (Annette) adventures were so popular they made seven of these movies! The plot never really changes and, come to think of it, neither do a lot of the characters, but why mess with a winning formula? Recently, I watched the sixth movie in the series called How To Stuff A Wild Bikini. It’s so bizarre I cannot believe somebody dished out the money to make this movie, but I’m glad they did. There’s a cameo by Samantha from Bewitched and they even managed to convince Mickey Rooney and Buster Keaton to join the cast. The songs in the movies define poptastic. They took all the popular genres at the time put em in a big hat, added a pinch of California surf and voila!

I think they must have gotten sick of each other, because Frankie and Annette hardly share any screen time in this movie. Frankie is on naval reserve duty in Tahiti and faithful little Dee is back home waiting for her man. Frankie is frolicking around with the local girls, which makes him wonder whether Dee Dee is staying true to him. The only logical thing to do is seek out a witch doctor (played by Buster Keaton), and have him send a bikini-clad siren to steer off Dee Dee’s potential suitors, while spying on her through a cauldron or something, I dunno – that’s where they lost me.

The witch doctor character is so offensive it’s funny. His accent is incredibly cringeworthy, but at one point he actually says “white man make heap good fire water” … it was a joke, but still … it wasn’t good. I love it when they take fake walks on the fake beach by fake moonlight, but my favorite part has to be the invisible girl in the bikini scene that prompted the title song. Again, it’s a bit offensive to women, but once you get over the ‘times sure have changed’-aspect it’s just a very, very silly, but oh so entertaining movie. So if you get the chance, do check ‘em out, they’re so bad they passed good and moved way up to fricking genius.

One of these days I’m gonna write up a post about the long list of things targeted at kids, I – technically not a kid – enjoy way, way too much. For now, I’ll start with one of my favorite, new-ish cartoons 6teen. If you like the movie Mallrats, you’re gonna love this show! It’s a Canadian cartoon about a group of sixteen-year-old friends. They hang around the lemonade stand where one of them works, and get into the zaniest adventures, but all within the confines of the mall. I think the dialogue is often brilliant and the storylines are silly and fun, yet approach teens in a respectful and utterly uncondescending way with a wicked sense of humor.

The six main characters are Jen Masterson – the sensible, studious one, Jude Lizowski – the skater dude, who in real life would totally be a pothead, Nikki Wong – the cool, cynical, Daria type, Jonesy Garcia – the macho, wannabe ladies-man who gets fired from a different job in every episode, Wyatt Williams – the arty, sensitive folk musician and Caitlin Cooke – the ditzy shopaholic, straight from the set of Clueless. My favorite characters are the supporting roles, like “Darth” the Star Wars fanatic, his girlfriend Julie the Taco Girl, and Ron the Vietnam veteran turned paranoid, bitter mall cop. At first glance, the characters and the very PC representation of every race may seem a bit banal, but during the course of the show we find there’s so much more to them, kind of like a modern day Breakfast Club. On top of all that, it looks beautiful and unlike any other cartoon I’ve ever seen. And it happens to have a ridiculously catchy theme song.

I bet every high school has a group of quirky, creative, arty, barefoot, nature girls that even the popular cliques observe with envy. Their seemingly carefree, unique ways and disregard of trends, only to start their own, give them an air of cool – not that they would care about a silly little thing like that. They wouldn’t look out of place in Haight-Ashbury circa 1967, but it seems they would make themselves at home wherever you’d plop them down.

The Half Sisters, the self-proclaimed busking queens of Brighton, are that group of girls. Their music and personal style is quirky and sweet, yet outrageous. They’re three sisters from Brighton who play guitars, the ukulele, the flute, and a vast array of objects that’ll function as percussion. They play light-hearted, fun and catchy songs that are perfect for the summer. “Our Dancing Skeletons” is the song that drew me in on their MySpace, but the still “Untitled” song on youtube is the one that made me love them so. As far as I can tell they haven’t released anything yet, but you can catch them playing their hearts out on the mean streets of Brighton.

Listen to “Our Dancing Skeletons”:

Check out the lovely “Untitled” song:

Today is a very special day at 100b headquarters, it’s Bean’s birthday! So stop what you’re doing and take a minute to listen to this song, because it may as well have been written for her. She may be a year older, but she’s still fit to boogie, still fit to RAWK & ROLL!!!

If I’m known for anything, it isn’t reviewing hip hop albums, that’s more aDawgg’s department, but I know what I like and I like Scripts N Screwz. The duo hail from St. Louis and have been working together for ten years. Their debut album The New Noise came out last year, but according to their digital, promotional pamphlet they only just released their second single “Brick”. The ubiquitous vocoder, its most prominent, frequent user being Kanye, should be annoying by now, but in this case it really isn’t because it makes sense in this song. A wobbly voice pleads ‘why can’t I keep my head above water?’ and the distortion actually sounds like he’s singing under water. It’s deliciously crazy, reminiscent of Outkast with an electro twist and killer lyrics. I don’t normally care for videos much, but the animated video accompanying the song compliments it beautifully, with much humor and surreal images, it’s a cross between The Little Mermaid, Moby Dick and the old animated Jackson 5 show.

Check out the Brick Video – is that merman (or whatever the male equivalent of mermaid is) supposed to look like Suge Knight??:

As for the rest of the album, it’s not all of “Brick’s” level but the hits outweigh the misses. And when they get it right, they can make you believe they are the bringers of a new noise. Their album didn’t make much of a ripple last year, but I hope with the release of “Brick”, it’ll still make their dreams of making it, as eloquently narrated in “Big City Lights”, come true. You can download the album from eMusic.

Sometimes I forget I really love Big Country, like I forget I really used to love to play hide ‘n seek. But once I’m reminded of the fun times I used to have trying to find the very bestest hiding place (I was an awesome hider, but I hated the ‘seek’ part of the game), all those fond memories start flooding back. I hadn’t thought about Big Country in years and years, but then I got the magical “Fields Of Fire” in my head the other day.

Big Country were a Scottish band whose roots are a big part of their unique sound. They got together in the early eighties and only just cracked the UK Top Ten with their second single “Fields Of Fire” in 1984. It’s so uplifting and fun and the lyrics are full of hope, I think. I decided that the song is about the journey from one point to the other; whether it be literal distances traveled or metaphorical journeys in life, but to be honest I’m not sure. Who cares? The band with its pounding drums, bag pipes, and fiddles sweep me up into such a frenzy that I don’t even care what it’s about anymore. Other bigger hits followed, like “Wonderland” and “In A Big Country” – both great songs, but I think this is the true poptastic classic.