Broadcasting now! I was a member of Live365 many years ago before this blog but after I started my own web site. Yeah, I don’t know either why it took me so long to jump on the blog bandwagon since The Web Pen has been around for close to eight years if not more. I was prompted to rejoin with the Jammie Thomas suit and friendly advice from Scott.

As of tomorrow all posts in the music mixology category will have their flash players and download links removed; however, you will be able to hear them on Web Pen Blog Radio! The cool thing about this is that I’ll be able to do live radio shows soon since they’ve developed a Mac version of their software while I was gone. This will be next year after the purchase of a new computer.

In the meantime, if there is a mix that you want to hear in the category, I can easily put it in the playlist and start it for you. Just email me and I’ll email you back that it’s cue up if I’m at a computer (which is a lot of the time). That’s right — I’ll take requests.

The station is listed under Freeform which is a format that is endanger from recent royalty increases thus another fun Internet activity may go away because someone out there is only concerned about money. Until then this is my only ‘legal’ way to display these kooky mixes.

How does it work? Go to the radio station’s homepage and press the big yellow button. Which ever media player you have installed that handles streaming audio will automatically open or your browser will download a small file that you can double click. All the major media players handle it.

And as a bonus feature the station will be playing the Halloween Atmosphere Mix all day in celebration of All Hallow’s Eve. Play it loudly to spook the kiddies, but not too loudly to scare them away. Unless you want all the candy yourself.

Listening to: “Halloween Atmosphere Mix”

At home feeling quite ill right now with some sort of flu-like something or another, so here’s two videos for your entertainment. Cameron turned me on to the Daft Hands series. They are especially fun if you’re a Daft Punk fan.

Listening to: “Heart Of Glass” - Blondie

The Foreign Films
Distant Star
(self-released)


CDBaby

Once in a while, a first album comes along and just blows you away, so is the situation with Bill Majoros or — in his guise as — The Foreign Films. Distant Star is a massive debut in its intimacy and its length. Double albums are rare especially for an artist just starting out, but Majoros is taking his cue from artists abandoning the creaking music industry machine and has released his first album himself.

And what an album. Distant Star is old-fashioned in its approach. It’s a pure pop album the way they used to be all the while still sounding modern. The music is eclectic, hook-ridden and simply wonderful. Most get sick of hear the term Beatlesque, but it is most appropriate here. He mixes elements of Ben Gibbard (Death Cab For Cutie, The Postal Service), Aimee Mann and Michael Penn with the psychedelic tinkering of early Sam Phillips and — you got it — the later Beatles.

Yet with all these familiar pieces, the finished puzzle is strikingly beautiful. The album starts off with a killer song in “Remember To Forget”. It is an ode to the old days of fledgling stereo with the instruments including the vocals being completely separated into left and right. From there we are transported into other realms of 60’s music with “Another World Behind The Sun” which gets its groovy edge not from the recording techniques used but with swirling guitars, violins and xylophones.

The real one-two punch though comes from the back-to-back yumminess of “We’ve Become Ghosts” and “The Sleepwalker” where Majoros throws on his black eyeliner and takes us into the 80’s by adding synthesizers to his already massive arsenal of instruments and arrangements. “Ghosts” is where he channels The Postal Service quite well which is a perfect sequel to the Service’s “We Will Become Silhouettes”. I found “Sleepwalkers” the best song here. With an added cello, Majoros dives deeply into the melancholy form of the 70’s but without the cheese.

Other stand-outs include the rockers “The Lonely #1″ and “Smoke And Mirrors”, the almost-dance-like “The Meaning Is Lost”, the 50’s-sounding “The Grand Unknown” and the gorgeous love song “Cinema Lights”. There are a few tracks at the end that sound like filler especially “Arcade By The Beach”, but can’t hardly be judged harshly when the lead-in is so amazing.

Like last year’s surprise debut of The Weepie’s first full-length album, Say I Am You, Distant Star is a showcase of an artist yearning to make music that he loves with no compromise and it truly pays off. Bill Majoros knows what he’s doing. If his debut is an indication of what’s to come then as all as he keeps his experimental technique tempered with his strong song writing then it will be a pleasure to listen to his career — much like this double album — from beginning to end.

iTunes has the album for $9.99, but for three extra dollars you can get it from CDBaby where they have DRM-free, higher-quality MP3’s plus according to CDBaby they give 91% of the money to the artist. CDBaby is so cool.

Huge hat tip to Absolute Powerpop for the recommendation.

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And here we are again. The Roundup it turns out has one good feature going for it. It indicates the weekend! Whooo… well, for those who only work Monday through Friday anyway.

Let’s start off with Jestertunes’ Night Of Mystery. Nope, that’s all I’m sayin’. Don’t want to spoil nothin’.

This is what love is, Lou Gramm. (And for those who don’t get that reference, Lou was the lead singer of Foreigner who had a big hit called “I Want To Love What Is” which was their only #1 song on the US charts. Huh, Foreigner number one on the US charts. Ironic!)

Chris over at My 2 Cents posted this video that shows one bad side effect of pot smoking. Okay, I guess 99% would find it bad. Not that I’m judging (but secretly I am.)

Speaking of pot, farmers are trying to get the government to take hemp off their controlled drug list so they can cultivate it because it grows like a — well, like a weed. It seems that industrial hemp has thousands of good uses and it won’t get you high. I suspect a lumber industry conspiracy.

Dr. Jeff Masters has a blog on Weather Underground that I read regularly — yeah, I’m a geek. This week he posted some extraordinary pictures of a tornado crossing over Black Lake in Michigan.

Frogster over at The Frog Bog gave us an excellent example of how to rant without all the anger. He kills with kindness in the story of his move from Cali to Jersey.

Just Giblets has posted a Halloween safety video for you.

And finally, Just Jami’s son loves wearing pink since it’s his favorite color. I like wearing it, too, so it made me doubly happy to read this protest story about a school coming together in a nonviolent protest. It’s like they are all modern pink-wearing Ghandis. Hmmm, I’m not sure now that pink would go with Ghandi’s coloring actually.

Listening to: “Busby Berkeley Dreams” - The Magnetic Fields