Brown Tracks

This year from Dolce & Gabbana: The bass guitar.My cousin Nathan got me into Kyuss. He lent me Blues for the Red Sun and after that I just bought everything they ever did. I got the original Man's Ruin Kyuss/Queens of the Stone Age Split, I got the singles, I got them all back in Australia. Like my dear cousin did for me, I have evangelized Kyuss to many a friend to the point of the slammed door in the face of the Mormon: having a record taken off at a party. Hey, man!

But this album. This album is special. It's called 'Wretch' and it was the first album Kyuss did as Kyuss, and not 'Sons of Kyuss', as only dorkwads would know.

Anyway, the indisputable kings of desert riffage, Josh Homme and bassist Nick Oliveri were only about 18 or 19 when they recorded this song. The album and production is rough as guts but the intro to this song is just in-fucking-credible. The bass has the chopping fury of one on a hard drug, and the guitar the urgency of one needing it.

M. Lanegan and band.

Got a minute? Got four and half? Cool. Plug in a set of earphones, or if you have a setup like Chuck A Spear, slide that volume control north and have a listen to a beautiful song called One Hundred Days, performed by The Mark Lanegan Band.

I think the lyrics are really nice. My favourite is 'From my fingertips a cigarette / throws ashes to the ground / I'd stop to talk to the girls who work this street / But I got business farther down.'

It's sung by Mark Lanegan (who was vocalist for the equally excellent band The Screaming Trees) and Chris Goss of Masters of Reality. I love the moodiess of this song and I also love this album, in part because the tracks have simple basslines that I could play if I had the money to buy another bass and the patience to practice.

In other words, the music is simple, and simplicity is beauty. It's the beautiful harmonies that make it, especially when Lanegan sings with PJ Harvey. If you haven't bought in already (and I know this one album Fruck and I can agree on) you should consider the purchase of Mark Lanegan's record Bubblegum from 2004.

Dr Hawkings modesty prevented him from being pictured on the album jacket.

Today during my break I was listlessly slouching around the internet. Apart from a brief moment of excitement regarding SGS's tangling with the Mafia, time was passing slowly until I happened up on this site.

It offers an Mp3 a day with all sorts of strange music from the past.

This song, performed by Bent Bolt & The Nuts, features Stephen Hawkings on vocals. The song is called The Mechanical Man.

Like the contributor to the site who uploaded this track, my favourite part is the strange octave change when Stephen sings 'I can make you a cup of teeeeeeeaaaaaaa!'

Please enjoy the song here.

The Chipmunx: we are not on acid.

It's been a while between drinks for Baron's Song of the Week.

With my CD collection at home, I've been steadily working my way through the contents of my iPod to share a few downloaded gems with you.

This week I thought I'd share a bit of Acid King with you. This is a lumbering, slow, doom-beast of a song with wicked blurred vocals and a great solo towards the end. However, when I chucked the song onto the site and pressed play I found something very odd had happened.

Features wild fish action: tag and release, naturally.

As an ex-fishing magazine editor, I have seen my fair share of fishing DVDs. Enough, in fact, to assemble this half-arsed 10-point spiel on the similarities between fishing and porn.

1. The most important thing to remember, if you're going to make a fishing video, is to think of a title that is parochial, preferably with some alliteration or a lame-duck dad joke weaved in. Debbie Does Dallas, transported to the parallel universe of fishing, becomes Don Devega's Deep Sea Drops. Dirk Diggler's Big Dick Dilemmas would read Dean on Drummer: Dirty Rock Rigging.

Slo Burn: Hope the flame burns a little lower and a little longer.

1997: the year I graduated from high school. I had a job as a furnature removalist, drove a HR Holden, could do 100 push-ups, run six kays on the beach. I surfed, and got drunk on weekends.

I didn't smoke tobacco and weed only occasionally. I had a nice girlfriend. My mum still did my washing and cooked my tea, but had given up asking questions about what I got up to with my mates on weekends. I lived in a makeshift room in the back shed.

My favourite bands were U2 and REM.

Although by then my record collection included most of what Primus had put out, and some Sepultura, Metallica, Beastie Boys, Dead Kennedys. It was also the year I discovered Led Zeppelin. So the seeds of dissent were there.

Che: tough guy effect ruined by grin.Regular readers will no doubt roll their eyes at the inclusion in Song o' the Week of yet another band featuring ex-Kyuss members. To them I say 'Arrrr!' and ask them to take a listen to The Day The Pirate Retired, performed by Brant Bjork's excellent band Che.

While guitarist Josh Homme and bassist Nick Oliveri went on to form heavy rock bands after the split of Kyuss, one-time drummer Brant Bjork concentrated on recording more chilled out blues with his bands The Operators and The Bros.

Before the solo albums, though, back in 2000, Bjork picked up his guitar and formed Che featuring another ex-Kyuss drummer, Alfredo Hernandez, and Unida member Dave Dinsmore on bass.

The Eraser: Gandalf held the malignant pasta at bay.

Thom Yorke's new solo album is pretty much what I expected -- a less dense reprise of Radiohead's Amnesiac.

Skittering electronic chirps and bleeps are pregnant with dry insect dread. It's bleak, windswept music that is quite beautiful for all its austerity. Computer music can sometimes feel distant and clinical but Yorke's voice adds an intensely human edge, and many of the tracks will suddenly burst into lush, organic synth orchestration midway through. Piano, the earthy tone of electric bass and some anxious, unsettling guitar lines add a touch of warmth to this otherwise very chilly album.

Thom Yorke has his fair share of critics, with many despising his seemingly endless depression. Yet there is no denying his ability to create at atmosphere with his distinctive voice. And sometimes, from a sudden register change, or a soaring double-tracked harmony, he can deliver a wallop of optimism and hope that will leave pins and needles all over your body.

The late Fred Drake of Mojave Desert band Earthlings?.

It's not that I'm running out of material for Song of the Week, but I was just looking through iTunes and found the track I originally wanted to feature when we looked at Palm Springs band Earthlings? a little while ago.

That post has all the details about who the band are, but I really wanted to share the song Nothing with anyone who is interested.

It's one to listen to loud on headphones if you have access to them. There is just so much going on in this song, with densely-layered guitar and keyboard tracks intertwining with Pete Stahl's laidback vocals. I also really love the bass sound in the outtro too.