"Ringfinger"
Nine Inch Nails

Depeche Mode seems to have forgotten they broke with "Just Can’t Get Enough".  That track was so catchy I had to buy the 12".  Even though I’m an album guy.  Listening to "Ringfinger" now, I can hear the resemblance.  Actually, "Ringfinger" sounds like BOTH halves of Depeche Mode’s career.  A melding of "Just Can’t Get Enough" with what came after.

I love "Closer", but by time Nine Inch Nails broke gargantuan too much of the band’s music was atonal noise that wasn’t ear-pleasing.  So, I was shocked to discover "Ringfinger" on Fred yesterday.  It came right after "Doot-Doot".  You know how sometimes stuff just FEELS right?

I wrote down the title on an old newspaper in my car, but I figured I’d find the track on Rhapsody.  No such luck.  I had to put on my shoes and go out to my automobile.  Then I downloaded the track P2P.  Did you read that anti-DRM/pro P2P editorial in today’s "New York Times"?  By the guy in OK Go?
Buy, Play, Trade, Repeat 
Great to see a backlash against all the ignorant musicians taking the side of label pricks everywhere.  If you can’t HEAR the music, you can’t sell it!

"Ringfinger" has turned my head around re NIN.  This is fantastic.  Catchier than most of what you hear on the radio TODAY, yet not predictable and banal.  Fire up your P2P application and take it.  We’re spreading the word.

"Doot-Doot"
Freur

A religious experience.  If you believe religion is not about some fictitious guy in the sky but what’s embedded in a vinyl record, or the 1’s and 0’s of an MP3.

Listening is like going to church.  I hadn’t heard this in eons.  It reminded me of taking a long drive alone in the middle of Vermont with the heat on.

"Spanish Jack"
Willy DeVille

The stuff Mike Marrone plays on the Loft makes your whole day.  Last week I heard Lee Michaels’ "Day Of Change" and I was elated for the rest of the day.  Then, the next day I heard this.

"Spanish Jack" is one of those magical records you play for a buddy.  You remember how it used to be.  You’d go to a friend’s house to listen, to play each other tunes.  And you wouldn’t be watching TV at the same time, not playing video games, you’d just be sitting on the floor of his bedroom, or on the couch in the living room, paying attention.

"Spanish Jack" is so simple yet so right.  The movies used to have the feel of this record.  Back before they played to the lowest overseas common denominator with a soundtrack assembled to satisfy the priorities of some record company.  This is as eerie as any Bruce Springsteen song.  But, if you’ve ever been up close to Willy DeVille you’re scared in a way that Bruce never affected you.  Bruce is from the suburbs, you know where he’s coming from.  Whereas Willy grew up in the world of the Magic Rat.

If you think today’s world is bullshit.  If you just want to recede from the rat race.  If you think nobody is in touch with what really counts.  If you need something to listen to as you sit in your house in Montana, or in the house you never leave in the city where the TV plays soundlessly, endlessly, "Spanish Jack" is your soundtrack.

"New Sensations"
Lou Reed

Believe it or not, BMG has populated P2P services with bogus files of this track.

Let me get this straight.  People looking for this twenty one year old song on a P2P service and not able to find it are going to go to iTunes or the record store and BUY IT?  (Assuming the store even stocks it.)  God, I already own the vinyl album.  And never loved it that much.  And, I found a legit/real file ANYWAY!

My favorite Lou Reed album is the very first.  With "Ocean".  And loving that SO much, I proceeded to buy every one through this one.  Funny how I stopped here, because it was a bit of a return to form.  It’s just that I got sick of…shit, all those New Yorkers, living there and ex, who kept trumpeting this guy whose heyday was behind him.

So, I was surprised to find how good "New Sensations" sounded.  It crept up on me.  It had the subtlety of "Loaded".  As if its maker was confident that less was more.  What a SIMPLE riff.  What a SIMPLE lead.  But, rock and roll isn’t about skill, but FEEL!  "New Sensations" sounds like you’re feeling up your girlfriend.  Or, walking around the city, shopping for guitars.  Or just wandering aimlessly, because you’ve got all the time in the world.  It’s magical.