![[Playlist] A Meaty Vacationing Mixture](http://cdn.elbo.ws/posts/4052057_lg.jpg)
Hello friends and others. I am off on a mini-vacation tomorrow (see above picture). When we get back from Mexico the plan is to finish packing up our house and move to Vancouver...finally. Life will be pretty wild over the next few weeks so I highly doubt that there will be much new music posted up here. As a present, here is a playlist that I will be listening to while sitting by the pool, eating tacos, drinking chi-chi's and playing some serious Scrabble. Till then... 1. Dirty Gold - California Sunrise [...]

INTRO "TVD's asked me to blog a bit as to what you can expect to see if you were to choose to see my show. Hell if I know. First of all why are you reading this? Do you have too much time on your hands? Are you scrutinizing each and every blog by each and every fringe act? Are you familiar with my work and wanna see what kind of wackiness I'm gonna write? I'll give you some basics and I'll shoot from the hip. It's a one man show, pretty biographical, got a lot [...]

So I'm off to Italy on Friday for a week. It's pretty doubtful that I'll have time to update this site while I am out of the country so hopefully these songs will help to fill the void. Enjoy! Free mp3: You Won't - Who Knew Free mp3: Billy Bragg & Wilco - California Stars Free mp3: Spanish Prisoners - Know No Violence [...]

Hooray, it's my fucking birthday. Whoop-de-fucking-doo. The thing is, I genuinely don't care about birthdays, either in a positive or a negative sense, but Facebook and birthdays are an ungodly fucking combination, really they are. "Yo, happy birthday dude." "Hey man, have a good one." Fuck off! If you really, truly care then at least buy me something expensive, and if you don't care enough to do that, which you shouldn't, then let's just drop all the shallow platitudes shall we. I don't care about my birthday, so there's no need for you to pretend to. [...]

I may only have lived in the Wiltshire village of Seend for about four or five months about ten years ago (seriously, ten?) but the fact that I had no job, nor was able to find one, meant that the music I listened to ended up with an extra resonance. Apart from looking for jobs I didn't know how to find, I spent an inordinate amount of time browsing through copies of Uncut magazine, back before it turned to shit, and buying albums based on how well I liked the songs they chose for their covermount CDs. [...]

Last month I posted a list of my 50 favorite albums of the past decade. You can catch up with that by following these links - # 50-41 , # 40-31 , # 30-21 , # 20-11 , and # 10-1 , if you'd like. While drafting the list I found that I rediscovered plenty of albums that were and are still worthy of more attention, even though they ultimately weren't included on that finished product. It was extremely difficult to cut many of them, so for the past few Mondays I've been spotlighting albums that I consider every bit [...]
Last summer as a build up to his six appearances a DC's Fringe Festival, I bent the ear of anyone who'd give me the time about how truly great and unique and f'n hysterical a Hamell on Trial gig can be. Hell, I caught four of those six performances, did the lights for two of them, and STILL I was laughing my ass off each and every time. Then the unexpected and the well-deserved occurred: Ed won the Fringe Festival's distinguished Director's Award. That's right—HE WON THE WHOLE FREAKIN THING. Not that it's a competition, [...]

A wonderful cascade of covers from a friend has turned my thoughts to covers of punk music this week. As Katie noted in her send-along, much of which appear below, "the thread that runs from folk to punk seems such a vibrant and easily spotted one to pull at", and that sounds just about right; I'd even go so far as to suggest that, like folk in the generation before it, Punk both served and sprung from the hearts of a discontented youth counterculture, and - as I noted about Rap rather tongue-in-cheek last year - [...]
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads: Backyard Tire Fire : 2009-10-17, Madison [mp3,,ogg,flac] "Cinnamon Girl (Neil Young cover)" [mp3] other Backyard Tire Fire posts at Largehearted Boy Chatham County Line : 2009-10-10, Pittsboro [mp3,ogg,flac] other Chatham County Line posts at Largehearted Boy Cracker : 2009-10-13, Freiberg [mp3,ogg,flac] "Brides of Neptune" [...]
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads: Akron/Family : 2009-07-23, Detroit Lakes [mp3,ogg,flac] "Lake Song" [mp3] other Akron/Family posts at Largehearted Boy Backyard Tire Fire : 2009-08-21, Bloomington [mp3,ogg,flac] "F the CC (Steve Earle cover)" [mp3] other Backyard Tire Fire posts at Largehearted Boy Blitzen Trapper : 2009-08-01, Happy Valley [...]
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads: Backyard Tire Fire : 2009-07-03, Naperville [mp3,ogg,flac] "One Wrong Turn" [mp3] other Backyard Tire Fire posts at Largehearted Boy Chatham County Line : 2006-07-13, Ancramdale [mp3,ogg,flac] "In the Arms of the Law" [mp3] other Chatham County Line posts at Largehearted Boy Guster : 2009-07-05, [...]

To those who know of Hamell On Trial , he's a bit of a legend. All the political fury and fiery rock noise of a punk band, rolled up in one guy and his acoustic guitar. In his own words, "just a little bit of wood, and a little bit of wire. Call up Smokey the Bear, 'cause there's gonna be a fire." Ed Hamell started out playing in punk bands around New York in the eighties. Eventually, he left the bands behind and ventured into the singer-songwriter arena. [...]
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads: Cowboy Junkies : 2009-06-19, York [mp3,ogg,flac] "Powderfinger" [mp3] Cowboy Junkies : 2009-06-18, Richmond [mp3,ogg,flac] other Cowboy Junkies posts at Largehearted Boy fIREHOSE : 1992-02-12, San Pedro [mp3,ogg,flac] "In My Mind" [mp3] other fIREHOSE posts at Largehearted Boy The Gourds [...]
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads: Cowboy Junkies : 1994-02-04, WNNX [mp3,ogg,flac] "Anniversary Song" [mp3] other Cowboy Junkies posts at Largehearted Boy Degenerettes : 2009-06-13, Baltimore [mp3,ogg,flac] "Queer for You" [mp3] other Degenerettes posts at Largehearted Boy Drive-By Truckers (with Booker T.) : 2009-06-13, Bonnaroo [mp3,ogg,flac] "Green [...]
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads: Gene Ween Band : 2009-05-30, Hunter [mp3,ogg,flac] "Mountains and Buffalo" [mp3] other Gene Ween Band posts at Largehearted Boy Gomez : 2009-05-30, Hunter [mp3,ogg,flac] "Sunset Gates" [mp3] other Gomez posts at Largehearted Boy The Gourds : 2009-05-29, Charlottesville [mp3,ogg,flac] "Mister Betty" [...]

I won't be going, but if I was, these would be my highlights. Now I know it will be impossible to see all of these bands/artists, I know how SXSW works. However, the SXSW website has a plethora of free songs for you to sample to assist you in your decision. If you are not going, go ahead and download them anyway; there's obviously a reason why these bands were picked to showcase their music this year. Abe Vigoda - Don't Lie [...]
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads: Buffetlibre has put together another compilation of indie bands covering 80's pop songs, Rewind 2 . Au Revoir Simone : "Here Is the News (Electric Light Orchestra cover)" [mp3] from Rewind 2 other Au Revoir Simone posts at Largehearted Boy Headlights : "Making Plans for Nigel (XTC [...]
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads: Camper Van Beethoven : 1988-07-07, Boston [mp3,ogg,flac] "Photograph" [mp3] other Camper Van Beethoven posts at Largehearted Boy Cracker : 1992-07-15, Portland [mp3,ogg,flac] "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace. Love, and Understanding? (Nick Lowe cover)" [mp3] other Cracker posts at Largehearted Boy Drive-By Truckers : 2006-05-19, [...]