Sometimes Midwestern hospitality comes off a little like a sick joke. :) The inside of the cemetery gate Loudonville, Ohio Themes Day Pt. 2 Addams Family MC Hammer - Addams Groove Los Straitjackets - The Munsters Theme Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells

The Family Straw took a trip to the beach yesterday. Besides being sunburned and sandblasted, we had a great time. Here are some "beach" songs. Jane's Addiction ∞ Up The Beach Los Straitjackets ∞ Kawanga! Jon And Roy ∞ To The Beach Joel Plaskett ∞ Lying On A Beach The Avett Brothers ∞ If It's The Beaches Air France ∞ Beach Party [...]

We have got one of my favorite live bands to see on the lineup for today. Now, I will go ahead and warn you guys that this is instrumental, and it is surf music, even though these guys are from Nashville and wear Mexican Wrestling masks. Don't believe me? Observe: I have seen these guys live a few times, and it is always a great show, albeit quite different. They rock out, they speak very, very fast in Spanish at the crowd, and they have choreographed guitar moves [...]

I had a request to repost this mix. And what better time than today? 1. Los Straitjackets ∞ My Heart Will Come On (Love Theme from Titanic) 2. John Butler Trio ∞ Peaches & Cream 3. The Jayhawks ∞ A Break In The Clouds 4. Joe Henry ∞ Rough And Tumble 5. Joni Mitchell ∞ A Case Of You 6. Vienna Teng ∞ Harbor 7. Sarah [...]

One of the top search strings on the Internet is "What is love?". If any of you netizens ever find out, please let me know. In the meantime, happy Valentine's day. Haddaway: What Is Love? - 7.51MB The KLF: What Time Is Love? - 8.94MB The Paragons: Have You Ever Been In Love? - 4.10MB Clyde McPhatter: A Lover's Question - 2.55MB Muddy Waters: You Need Love - 4.23MB Slim Whitman: Indian Love Call - 3.71MB [...]

Los Straitjackets ~ Frosty The Snowman
As usual, here is the recap post, offering you one-stop shopping for Christmas songs. I encourage you to browse the archives and read the notes. By coincidence, I notice that many of these songs are originals, rather than cover versions, and I also notice that there's only one traditional carol. It wasn't intentional, but it's a reflection of my interest in holiday pop originals. Most of the time, people do covers and I understand why. It's hard to write a really good new Christmas songs and people usually want to hear to old [...]
Here are a couple of Latin takes on a pop classic. You may recall that Clement C. Moore created a lot of the Santa mythology in his 1823 poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas." He invented the image of Santa as the jolly fat man who came down the chimney and left the kids presents and made up the notion of the sleigh and eight tiny reindeer, including those crazy names. Jump ahead a century and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was created by Robert L. May in 1939 for Montgomery Ward as a [...]

Much like last week, this is NOT the end-all lists of Rudolph songs. In order of shortest to longest: Johnny Cash and Roy Clark ~ Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer Jack Johnson ~ Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer Sy Mann ~ Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer Dean Martin ~ Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer Los Straightjackets ~ Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer Smiley Burnette [...]

There are a few reasons why Halloween gets an entire month's worth of posts on Armagideon Time and Christmas gets a measly week (and change). The primary explanation is that Halloween's spooky vibe appeals to me more than the retail industry-driven insanity that Christmas has become. There's also the fact that the Yuletide holiday season has long-since bled through the Black Friday (and, oh, how I hate that descriptor for the day after Thanksgiving) boundary, so that candy corn and toxic light-up skulls immediately segue into artificial evergreen trees, NASCAR TM ornaments, and [...]

Musikfest starts today. What is Musikfest? Only the coolest, most awesome 10 days of music (mostly for free) on the East Coast. Maybe anywhere. If you are in Bethlehem over the next 10 days, maybe check out one of performers below. Or just get some of those wonderful Musikfest money-tickets, buy a 22 ounce beer and POLKA all night long!!! Either way, look for The Duke, The Duchess and Duke Jr. to be traipsing around the 'fest. To get you excited, I made this mix of mp3s [...]
Here's a smattering of MP3's from the bands we saw at SXSW, pilfered from blogs found on http://www.elbo.ws . Okkervil River - Our Life is Not a Movie (Live at SXSW) Okkervil River - The President's Dead (Live at SXSW) Okkervil River - For Real (Live at SXSW) The Mooney Suzuki - This Broken Heart of Mine The Mooney Suzuki - Rock n' Roller Girl [...]

Eilen Jewell's joined in on the fun with this report from SXSW. For a very short time Eilen Jewell ( here ) was one of the best unsigned acts in the country. Then the great New England folk label Signature Sounds decided to pick up distribuion of her self released disc, then they wised up and signed her to a full fledged contract. Her new record, Letters From Sinners and Strangers , is due out in June. Here's a great video of the band. And here's her song "Back [...]

" Indie pop refers to indie music which is considered to be based on the conventions of pop music. The term is nebulous." I came across that line while flipping through the pages of Wikipedia and thought it was great. Nebulous is probably the gold standard when it comes to synonyms for the much less exciting word, vague . The quote is taken from Wiki's information on indie pop, which goes on to read: "Because indie rock is sometimes used to mean indie music as a whole, indie [...]