That's it, hecklerspray's gone and gotten political. Or more retarded – depending how you read it. This week's awesome musical recommends are powerful indeed. So powerful, in fact, they made us take several very confusing war stances, support the French, and want to kiss a giant bear-dog on the teeth… because we owed it one for reasons too confusing to list twice.
Regardless, today's suggested tracks include those from Toad The Wet Sprocket, The Beastie Boys, The Black Angels, Carla Bruni, Kasabian and The Shins…
The Beastie Boys: I Don't Know off Hello Nasty
(How well do you know these guys? Did you know the the Beastie Boys are more than hip hop? It's true, they also vacuum, clean pools, and run an oriental-styled dry cleaner. It's where we go to get our scarves starched. They also play guitar-based songs with beautifully sung melodies like this one. It's good, oh it's real good.)
Toad The Wet Sprocket: I Will Not Take These Things For Granted off Fear
(How long have these guys been broken up now? 100 years? 200? We don't really know. What we do know is this song is a bit of a reminder of that whole mid-nineties Bosnian war. Don't ask. Please don't ever ask. If you ask we'd be forced to tell you we were a soldier for hire, and due to poor individual villages continuously scraping more and more money together, we switched sides more than a cheese sandwich in a frying pan. When it was all over and we got home, we bought some real expensive roller-blades – the salesman called 'em 'top notch'.)
The Black Angels: Call To Arms off Passover
(Those of you lucky enough to download this track will no doubt be delighted at its 18-minute running length – don't worry, it's actually two songs, two great songs. The second one is a sixties-style anti-war rant, and the first one goes through war's many benefits, like population control, increased jobs in the explosives industry, and war being a great outlet for people who like to strangle stuff. Actually, that's not true at all, but both songs are terrific.)
Carla Bruni: Quelqu'un m'a dit off Quelqu'un m'a dit
(Anyone out there like France? Anyone? Anyone? Well we do, in fact we love France – especially when they pump out music like this. Now technically, we don't know for a fact this is French, we just assume it is because of the liberties the artist has taken with apostrophes and 'Q's. But wherever it comes from, and in whatever panty-waist language it's sung in, this track makes for one fine listen.)
Kasabian: The Doberman off Empire
(hecklerspray sure does like Kasabian, and we have several fond memories of being rescued by a giant barrel-wearing dog in the Alaskan wilderness. Or maybe it was a bear. Anyway, our love of Kasabian and our one-time salvation by a dog-bear from a large partially wooded parking lot make this track a very logical recommend. This song's also a great way to end their awesome new album. You really should check the whole thing.)
The Shins: Saint Simon off Chutes Too Narrow
(We saw the Shins once. They were dressed like nuns, and they were beating each other with gigantic rulers. After McDonalds kicked them out of the ball pit, we decided to check their music. It's fantastic, and this here recommend is but a tasty nugget from their second album. The rumour mill has it a third album is almost here, and we can't wait.)
Now listen to these beautiful choices via the magic of Napster
[story by Shawn Lindseth]