I'd like you to cast your mind back a little. Back to the days when Incubus were new, and funky, and your mum wasn't saying "I'd like that Drive song for christmas so I can play it to my grade three class"

Ok, do you have that time in your mind? I do, but it's easy for me because I have a little something to help me, and that little something is called Hoobastank.

Everybody's in for a treat when Luke_savy_cola starts posting - like Crush with Ryan Adams - I owe my discovery of Hoobastank to Luke. Some people have impeccable music tastes. These people should be gainfully employed in the music industry so they don't have to get a job as a lawyer...

...Ahem, where was I? Aah yes. After I suffered an horrific accident involving no sleep, eight litres of coke and a NTFS formatted disc drive, Luke helped me to rediscover my will to live (he dumped 5 gigs of sweet sweet music onto my drive). In the months since the mirror laid dormant, waiting for me to find it and fall in love.

If what you're missing is some heavy, funky riffage, and sexy sax work, you should join with me and listen to the following tracks. Because that's what they've got, great big slabs of funky, marinaded in saxophonic sexiness and then baked in a big oven of clear, clean vocals.

Look at me, I'm gushing.

Jaymis is making love to: Hoobastank - Earthsick (128 kbit) (.mp3 renamed to .zip) 3,607 KB
Hoobastank - Stuck Without a Voice (128 kbit) (.mp3 renamed to .zip) 3,315 KB
Hoobastank - Educated Fool (128 kbit) (.mp3 renamed to .zip) 3,593 KB
Hoobastank - The Mirror (192 kbit) (.mp3 renamed to .zip) 5,208 KB

Since I started writing this I've done a bit of research and found out that all the tracks I've chosen are from Hoobastank's EP they don't make basketball shorts like they used to, released in 1998. Since then they've ditched their sax player because they thought the music they were making was too "carnival-ish" and "bizarre"... ditched their sax player for the new album which went gold on Monday.

Now they're going to burn in hell for all eternity. People, if you have a band, never ditch the sax player. Saxophones give life and shape to the universe. Without sax players the world would be an empty, barren place... The new Hoobastank stuff is ok, but without the sax they're just another rock band.

Finally: Mad props to Angsty for keeping the dream alive and making this site. I'm a big believer in the blog system for web publishing and I'm keen to see what musical gems this site will bestow upon us in the future.

I've been listening to lots of Arabic music of late. Not lots.... but a CD of it. Arabic Groove. Its compilation of Arabic artists singing in French (Arabic music is big in France) and in their native languages. Some of it uses traditional Arabic instruments and some of it uses cool hip hop and dance samples.

ExistAngst is listening to....
Cheb Tarik - L'Histoire (160kbps) (.mp3 renamed to .zip)

Cheb is singing of a spurned lover who wants to forget his pain and dance the night away. Cute. Cheb is Algerian. But I think he's singing in French.

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Are there any perl programmers that would be kind enough to lend me their expertise on a script i'm struggling to modify? I would be the personification of grateful.

When Angsty first came to me with the idea of a blog-style mp3 page, unlike some others I embraced it with open arms. Why? Because it seems that in the past two years at least, personal sites on the web have making a move towards this type of format. Almost everyone that has a personal site lately has one in some type of weblog format, and they seem to generate much more publicity than the former personal site, wraught with tasteful animated gif's and large scrolling colourful text. So why not use the weblog format for a page totally devoted to music, where people can share their ideas on their favourite bands and share some free music to boot? I think it's a fantastic idea, i'm happy to be a part of it and I really hope it succeeds. Much like Angst, though, I hope it doesnt turn into pretentious music review style posts, because that would be rather wanky and bad.

With that out of the way, I just have to share one of my most favourite musical discoveries in the past few months. In the midst of an era where most country music lovers are vilified as redneck bootscooters has arisen a new genre of country music: as alternative country or "alt-country" to us hip, groovy people. I would recommend a looksee by anyone who loves the sound of acoustic guitars accompanied by soulful vocals and unpretentious, real lyrics (and those that like to wear cowboy hats. There really are people who like to wear cowboy hats. Blair from Big Brother/Neighbours is one of them). Sometimes things can get too whiny and annoying, but if you take a look around you might just find something you like. Or maybe not. It's not for everyone, but to illustrate how diverse the alt-country genre is, here are some that are described as alt-country: Beth Orton, Aimee Mann, Kasey Chambers and of course Billy Bragg and Wilco.

One of the most exciting alt-country artists to come out of the woodwork recently with his album, Gold, has to be Ryan Adams (not to be confused with Bryan Adams). It's hard to describe him without sounding like a diehard fan of the Country music genre, but he's everything I need to hear in a male artist of any type, and he looks good in jeans and a US flag (don't believe me? take a look at the cover of gold. yeah, baby). His single, "New York, New York", has been receiving a large amount of airplay lately, and not suprisingly considering recent events. In fact, go here to see what Ryan has to say about the events of Sept 11 and the impact they've had on him and his city.

Sample some of "Gold":

Crush is listening to:
Ryan Adams - New York, New York (160 kbps) (.mp3 renamed to .zip) 4.43MB
Ryan Adams - Harder Now That It's Over (160 kbps) (Zip Archive) 5.26 MB
Ryan Adams - Wild Flowers (160 kbps) (Zip Archive) 5.77 MB
Ryan Adams - Enemy Fire (160 kbps) (Zip Archive) 4.78 MB

Also, a special thank must go out to Luke aka Pooks aka whatever-band he's-into-right-now, who will shortly be sharing his musical guruness with us. It was upon his urging that I went out and bought the album, and dagnabbit, he was right.