Blog: Selective Service

Influence is everything. Without influence, there would be no result, right? So the band in question in this month's (delayed) Selective Service mix is one that wears its influences on its sleeve... and in its kilt... and coated with a lot of hair product. They are more original than original, less derivative the the other guys, and just a bit more coherent than Keith Richards. It could be argued that the parts of this band are much greater than the whole - a statement which is likely true, but the guy holding a gun [...]

• The (New) Originals »

Okay, so first I must apologize for the lateness of this month's Selection. It was my turn, but lots of things came cropping up at once, and even though I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do, it has taken until now to implement it. As it turns out, both Sam and Rudi were glad to have an extension as well, so now that we're all present and accounted for, here goes: This month's idea, "Distillation," is a game of sorts. We will present to you a short collection of songs, in chronological order, by [...]

Hello there, Selective Service faithful. Sorry things have been quiet around here. All sorts of vacations, scheduling mishaps, and technical glitches have conspired to delay July's selections by a couple of weeks, but rest assured that you'll be seeing them and our monthly crushes in the next few days. In fact, because we've been so late, you'll be getting a special treat from us. More on that when our Selections debut in a couple of days. If you just can't wait for more music, try hecking out my other blog, You Can Take [...]

So Uncle Sam and I often talk (even babble) at length on our weekly scheduled rendezvous at the comic shop (of the two of us, I'm the one being paid to be there) about all things music. And then, our rants spent, those words often don't make it here onto the Selective Service site. We decided last time we spoke to start posting some of this incessant drivel in the hopes of giving some of our visitors something new to look at and read whenever they visit, not just new music twice a month. So here goes [...]

This post is adapted from my other blog, You Can Take The Boy Outta Brooklyn... My listening habits have been forever changed by the 'Shuffle Songs' feature on my iPod. Back in the day when CDs were still new-fangled and mp3s were the stuff of a far-off science-fiction future, I'd get to know an album by keeping it stuck in my discman for days. Nowadays, I upload an album to my iPod, listen to it once all the way through, and then wait for songs to cycle [...]

Okay, this month's crush is a bit more diffuse than my previous picks. But I've been doing a lot of cycling, you see. Metric centuries (62 mile, or 100 kilometer, rides) are now second-hand to me, and I'm becoming known as a master of hills amongst my riding friends. I'm not sure exactly what happened this year that made me get better, stronger and faster. Perhaps it was the incentive of fully recovering from last summer's shoulder injury . Perhaps it's the fact that I've lost a lot of weight from [...]

Oooookaaaay... I've moved on from Josh Lucas and now my crush this month is on some goats. Mountain Goats, to be more precise. The band The Mountain Goats , to be completely explanatory. My friend and co-worker Ryan is one of three people who continually expose me to new music (the others being Uncle Sam and former fellow employee and music history nut Bob). Sometime around the beginning of the month, Ryan made me a couple of CD mixes of stuff he thought I'd like. His recommendations are always useful, mainly because whereas Sam and Bob [...]

Sorry, everyone - I've had to remove all the mp3's from You Can Take The Boy Outta Brooklyn... and Selective Service . I do apologize for the many, many 404: File Not Found 's you're bound to get in the next few days. I'll have a solution to this shortly. Thanks for your patience... Tags: Website Issues

Originally posted at my other blog, You Can Take The Boy Outta Brooklyn... It only comes once a millennium - 6/6/06. 6-6-6. That's right kids, today's date matches up with one of the most famous Christian superstitions of them all, the mark of the beast! Let's celebrate with a musical tribute to the man in red - after all, he's been a ever-present in our culture since Milton's Paradise Lost and an essential part of music since Robert Johnson sold his soul to the Devil in "Crossroads." [...]

Yeah, I don't get the car thing - I just don't understand the American obsession with chrome, rims, and neon-glowing undercarriages. Sure, I don't have a driver's license, but I get where I need to go via public transportation and my own two feet - it's better for me, and it wears on the environment a little less, too. Here, then, is my tribute to the car-less traveler: Tenacious D , "The Road" To be honest, I really devised this month's theme to be able to get Tenacious D [...]

The Avalanches , "Little Journey" A short little intro from The Avalanches' album "Since I Left You", which in my opinion sits rather nicely right next to Beastie Boys' "Paul's Boutique", De La Soul's "Three Feet High And Rising" and The Art Of Noise's "In No Sense? Nonsense!" as one of the best sample-based albums ever recorded. Fatboy Slim featuring Lateef , "The Journey" I have no doubt that Uncle Sam originally had this on his playlist but cut it either due to time contraints or because both of us had previously included it [...]

Unlike Uncle Sam, I actually enjoy driving (though not as much as flying or riding my bicycle ), and I'm familiar with long road trips, having made many a round-trip between DC and Connecticut - around 365 miles each way. So this playlist came quite naturally to me. However, I wanted to make it into a journey of its own: a bit of a tour of the United States. Granted, it'll miss a lot of territory, but that's similar to most concert tours ("why isn't [artist name] playing in my town?" asks Sally). [...]

Say hello to Selective Service 's new, improved, lemon-scented URL: Bookmark: http://www.selective-service.n et If you can't be bothered to update your bookmarks, fret not - http://www.forepac.com/selecti veservice/ will always work, too. It's just not as sexy. The transition may be a bit bumpy - if you come across any broken links or something that doesn't work, please drop us a line (email: selectiveservice@gmail.com ) & let us know, ok? Thanks! Tags: [...]

We're gonna just have fun this month. School's out, after all, right? Right. Now, onto keeping it simple: I was just taking a look at my summer calendar, and I'm going to be a busy, busy traveler. I've got weddings, business trips, and, if I'm lucky, maybe a vacation of my own, too. I'm going to be on planes, trains, and automobiles, and my iPod is going to be an integral part of every trip. I'm going to need some good tunes for the open roads (or tracks, or skies, etc.), so let's have at it, gentlemen! [...]

I feel I'm gleefully representing the political and "moral" climate of my home state of Massachusetts when I proudly admit that my crush this month is on two guys named Josh and Lucas. (...NOT, I repeat NOT, that weird acting-talent-infused McConaughey clone named Josh Lucas...) I guess this admission won't come as any surprise to those who know me well, or just people who know the two of them better as DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist. Shadow is... Well, he's friggin' DJ SHADOW, the single greatest representative of turntablism since back when Grand Mixer DST and [...]

I don't know if this is so much a "monthly crush" as it is a monthly severe-case-of- earworm . This month was chock-full of excellent releases (Springsteen, Neil, and Pearl Jam, oh my!), but this one was never far from my headphones. Gnarls Barkley is the brainchild of DJ/masher-upper/producer Danger Mouse (the mad genius responsible for the outstanding Jay-Z/Beatles mash Grey Album 2 years back and producer of two of last year's best albums, the still-growing-on-me Gorillaz album Demon Days and Danger Doom's Mouse and the Mask ) and [...]

It's the middle of May, and my ears are atwitter with new music. Recent weeks have seen the release of Paul Simon's fun new album, Surprise , and Neil Young's hot anti-war album, Living With War . There are also some interesting new songs from the Red Hot Chili Peppers , and Guns 'n' Roses have played a handful of gigs in NYC. I even went to see a wonderful concert by Thomas Dolby , and [...]

This took me some time and effort to compile, mainly because I was a bit unclear on the concept at first. My initial idea was to be a succession of songs where each featured a sample of the song before. This is problematic, since it would by definition need to be in chronological order, and people have only been sampling since the mid-80's. The longest string I could think of was James Brown's "Funky Drummer" (the most sampled song in history), which was sampled by the Fresh 4 for their cover of "Wishing on a Star," which was sampled [...]

Okay, so I laid down the ground rules for this over two months ago (in my head, at least). Then I had a case of writer's block: I just couldn't connect the dots. Nothing. Nada. Lots of dead ends. Lots of split ends - but that's another matter, entirely. But then I got started on an obtuse angle (sleep deprivation, classes, cycling and other such things will do that to me), and decided on a starting point: The Beatles. Firstly, they are my [...]