Recordjunkie.com is a simple idea. It lists, and breaksdown the list, of great record shops around the world. It’s seems this is more important now than ever. In the past, great record stores depended on an international network and was tied to mail order and later online purchases. Great stores like Amoeba in LA or Rough Trade in London were known around the world.

Not saying that Recordjunkie will start a revolution. But it’s a solid idea and should be supported. You can read people’s store reviews as well.

It’s still in Beta, so hopefully more functionality will go with it. All we know is that every holiday we take from now on, we will be checking in with this site first.

recordjunkie.com

The Hot Rats - Turn Ons

Covers albums. Troubling things. But at least the Hot Rats have mentioned David Bowie‘s great Pin-Ups album as a reference. And for those just joining us, the Hot Rats are Gaz and Danny from 90s/00s superstars Supergrass.

Although they’ve not said it, we are assuming this is the natural extension of the Diamond Hoo Ha Men, the fictional duo that these two formed after bassplayer Mick was injured a couple of years back. Supergrass could use some time away, but these music nuts could not sit still. This is how we imagine it anyway.

So the Hot Rats (named after a Zappa record we guess) have recorded an album of covers. And, as is expected, they barely come close to any song from the last 20 years.

Amongst their excellent choices are Squeeze‘s Up the Junction, Elvis Costello‘s Pump It Up, Velvet Underground‘s I Can’t Stand It, and some Beatles, Bowie and more.

Looking deeper there’s some interesting song selections as well. The free track offered at Stereogum (one of our fave sites) is a cover of the Beatsie Boy‘s (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!), in a glam rock vein. If this is like the album, we imagine this album to be a lot of fun (but have limited shelf life).

What really raises our eyebrows however, is the inclusion of the Sex Pistol‘s spittingly bitter attack that is EMI. Having joined the Pistols as another band to be dropped by the classic label, one wonders how much the Hot Rats put of themselves in that track.

The Hot Rats album, Turn On, comes out on the 19th Jan in the US, and the 25th Jan in the UK. Not finding a release date anywhere else at the moment.

The Hot Rats – You Gotta Fight For Your Right To Party! (from Stereogum)

Official site – http://www.thehotrats.com/

Doesn’t play right? You have to go to the YouTube page.

It sucks. We know.

Record labels, film companies and other video creators have pressured YouTube into this. And they backed down. As YouTube is owned by Google, we are surprised they did this. They are usually forward thinkers.

What’s the thinking behind disabling the embed feature? Money. People are demanding money for their content from YouTube. YouTube only make money from advertising. If no one actually goes to the YouTube page, YouTube makes no money and can’t pay the artists. That’s the big general overview.

But lets dig deeper.

YouTube has cried poor from day one. And we believe them. How many times have you clicked on an ad on a YouTube page? By YouTube‘s very nature, it’s mass market and impossible to target. The OK GO clip is inching towards 50 million plays. Name one other thing 50 million people may care about. Coke? McDonalds? Those are the only companies that need that reach, and are willing to pay for it. And when a company/brand is that mass market and ubiquitous, who needs to click on it? Really, who needs to click through to a McDonalds banner ad.

People who think YouTube are a fountain of money are wrong. YouTube, however, is valuable. Google didn’t create it, but it does own it now. And YouTube fits so nicely with Google. Google spent billions and billions creating services like Maps and News with the idea that, one day, later, we’ll figure out how to make money. It makes their shareholders nervous but they are almost always rewarded.

So we are waiting for the next dam to break, and for someone to work out how to make money off YouTube. Right now, it has to trap you into going to the site, to get their numbers up, and try to squeeze more money out of their ads.

(As we are (we think) three years away from every TV screen being connected to the internet, YouTube may well get even better viewing figures. Licensing out a YouTube channel for on demand broadcast could be one way to make some money.)

Although, it does seem odd that Google, arguably history’s greatest ad placers, can’t seem to work this out.

The real tragedy though is the loss of the embed technology. The YouTube story has been tied to the red hot concept of viral marketing. It’s been the story of the decade. And now, it’s gone. No embeds takes a massive blow against what made YouTube so cool when it first appeared. And it leaves room for a competitor to find a clever way around it.

But the scarier thought is the death of viral marketing. People say things like – wow, no one is ever going to sell as many records as Thriller. It’s just not possible, the world doesn’t work that way anymore. As the user generated video world matures, maybe we will be saying – wow, no one’s ever going to get 50 million hits again.

The Grateful Dead App

As innovative as the iPhone is/was, it’s the world of Apps that really make it special. It’s taken computing power back to being practical, and for the first time in a long time, not about the internet. As people launch more and more apps, it’s no surprise to find many bands launching their own iPhone apps.

So why are so many of them so shit?

Trawling around, we’re finding dozens of them. But the great thing about the App world is functionality, and many of these band’s apps are glorified webpages.

Calendars, News, About pages…what’s the point. When you have the internet on your phone? The worse are band apps that have Galleries. Galleries! This isn’t a mid 90s CD-Rom. Did you forget the screensaver?

Which is actually the point of this article. Too many of these apps feel like mid 90s CD-Rom programs. A bit of music, maybe a game, some photos, the lyrics… which may well be fine. But this is an app, something you keep on your phone. Not a CD-Rom that is there when you feel like listening to that record.

And why do we need band applications at all? Want to listen to music? There are lots of ways of doing that on the phone. Spotify‘s subscription will cost you less than buying all those band apps. And then there’s growth. We love a lot of music. But are we going to have to get every one of those band’s apps on our phones? If they start offering exclusives of some sort, we might have to. Or more likely, we’ll give up being a super fan because it’s too hard. We will be excluded.

So, we’re yet to be convinced by any band’s app. We’re struggling to see the point. And unless someone has a great idea, we will see it die alongside the mid 90s CD-Rom.

For the record – the band apps I’m looking at for this article are Wilco, REM, Belle And Sebastian, Pearl Jam, Grateful Dead, Pink, 311, Alice In Chains, Death Cab For Cutie, and more. If there is a good one we may have missed.

http://mosspuppet.com/

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery – as the old saying goes. And if there is any doubt that computers are the new rock ‘n’ roll, we are now in a world where tech journalists are being parodied. And brilliantly so.

If you don’t know Walt Mossberg, the human version, he is the long time tech journalist for the Wall Street Journal. He is a big supporter of Apple products, and often gets products before release to review – making him hot commodity in the tech world. He’s grumpy demeanor and his video blogs on the All Things Digital site are well known to Mac fans, and technology fans in general.

So along comes Walt Mosspuppet. From the brilliant Rant Puppets studio, Mosspuppet was one of many parody puppets on the site. But Mosspuppet has struck a chord. In recent weeks, he has launched a twitter account, a podcast and a cool new blog.

Everyone wants information these days. Leaks, spoilers, exclusives – all hot words in this day and age. The real Mossberg has them, and Mosspuppet sends up that culture better than anyone. In his regular videos, Mosspuppet goes on about his NDAs, how he’s had the Apple Tablet for months but can’t talk about it. He’s also disturbingly in love with Steve Jobs. His enemies are any of Apple’s competitors. In short, he is the cartoon of every Mac worshipper out there.

Here’s one of my favourites, that pretty much sums up his credo

But as with every lie, there’s some truth. The blog is fantastic, bursting the bubble on net rumours, bad journalism, insane fandom and there is just some pretty decent swearing as well.

So go check out the videos first, and then follow the man (puppet) on his blog – http://mosspuppet.com/

(And hey, here’s another classic. This is back when he was still called Walt Mossberg)

Quarantine the Past - Pavement

Welcome back to Tuesday Tunes! We try to focus on new music, but we could not let Pavement pass. Last year they announced they were reuniting for a big world tour, and will be releasing a the first ever Pavement compilation to celebrate. Finally we have some details – but you can make up the rest.

The compilation is called Quarantine the Past, and it will feature 23 tracks, according to their label Matador. It will open with the fantastic Gold Soundz, from their Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain album, but after that – they aren’t telling us.

But you can guess, and win. Matador are running a competition to guess the other 22 tracks. Full details are on their site, but cooler still is there is an award for ‘most creative’ tracklisting’. And they will even print up copies of the creative version for the next Record Store Day.

A whole lot of reunion shows and this compilation is going to make for a big year for Pavement. But right now, Matador are also offering that opening track, Gold Soundz, as a free download (halfway down the page here).

And look, there’s now even an official-like Pavement site.

Elbo.ws

It’s hard to keep up with vast, random wasteland that is the ‘blogosphere’. With thousands and thousands of voices all going at it, how can you both tell what’s going on and find what you’re looking for? In the music world, we have an imperfect solution in Elbo.ws.

It’s essentially a blog aggregator. It pips competitors like hype machine for us with some very important features. One is the list of most talked about artists that lives on the right of the front page. There’s also the latest articles feed, which makes all these music blogs feel like one big blog. Most importantly of all, the tracks feature means you can drill down to a specific track, even if it was posted many years ago.

In the last few years, Elbo.ws has taken off in a big way. You can tell this by the fact the ads have gotten bigger. It’s also skewered towards American indie. But at least now, when  someone says ‘the blogosphere is going wild for …. ” you can actually check for yourself.

Oh and the name of the site sux.

Check out Elbo.ws here – http://elbo.ws

Youth Group - The Night Is Ours - out now

We are so happy that we can tell you about this song, this band and this album. Youth Group are from Sydney, Australia but are now mainly based in New York City. Their last album, The Night Is Ours, only came out in Australia and it was our album of 2008. In 2009 they have secured a US release on the world’s Fair label.

If anyone outside of Australia has heard of the band, it maybe due to their music being used in US indie shows like the OC (their cover of Alphaville‘s Forever Young was used in a key scene), and touring with the same sort of bands like Death Cab For Cutie.

They have also just announced a run of shows with a reunited Get-Up Kids. To celebrate, they are giving away the first single from the album, a track called Two Sides.

The Night Is Ours, their 4th full length, is a thoughtful, moody dark album. It was recorded on a ship in S6ydney harbour, and touches on the isolation and loneliness that was so expressed by other Australian bands like the Triffids, the Go-Betweens and Nick Cave.

That mood is not immediate on Two Sides, one of the more uptempo and rocking songs on the album (although it’s hardly rock). The 2009 version of the record also has a much better album cover. The Night Is Ours is out now.

Get the track at their site – Youth Group – http://www.youthgroup.com.au

Link is also on the World’s Fair Website – http://worlds-fair.net/news/2009/06/24/youth-group-to-join-the-get-up-kids-on-their-fall-2009-reunion-tour/

Lily Album - It's definitely her

We are a blog after all. So lets make some lists.

Top 10 albums of the year so far

1. Lily Allen – It’s Not Me, It’s You
2. God Help the Girl – s/t
3. Jarvis Cocker – Further Complications
4. Bell X1 – Blue Lights On the Runway
5. Rhett Miller – s/t
6. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz
7. Wilco – Wilco (the Album)
8. The Mummers – Tale To Tell
9. Neko Case – Middle Cyclone
10. Bob Evans – Goodnight, Bull Creek!

We’ll leave the full babble for the end of the year. But Lily Allen‘s new, confident, mature, nasty, fun record has topped our list so far, with Stuart Murdoch’s new project God Help the Girl coming in a very close second. Jarvis Cocker starts all over as a British Nick Cave figure. So far a wonderful year for music and so much more to come.

So many albums only just missed out. Here’s our top 10 songs not on our top 10 albums list.

1. Phoenix – Lisztomania
2. Yves Klein Blue – Getting Wise
3. Regina Spektor – Dance Anthem Of the 80s
4. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – A Teenager In Love
5. Casiotone For the Painfully Alone – Natural Light
6. Franz Ferdinand – Katherine Kiss Me
7. Doves – 10:03
8. Camera Obscura – You Told A Lie
9. Gomez – Airstream Driver
10. Jason Lytle – Yours Truly, The Commuter

legendsrevealed.com

Harry Nilsson‘s coffin was lost? ‘Dirty Diana‘ was about Diana Ross? Superman was a spy? All this and more is answered at Entertainment Legends Revealed. It’s poorly named, badly designed and cumbersome to navigate – but the STORIES are great.

This site started as a column at Comic Book Resources called Comic Book Legends Revealed. It’s been running for years now, and is currently up to column 212, and a book version called ‘Was Superman A Spy?’ is out now. Recently, it’s expanded to include movies, music, TV and even paintings, opera and board games.

We thought we knew our share of trivia, but the writers behind this site have dug out some fantastic stories. And they explain the stories from scratch, introducing the players and images galore to help illustrate the situation. They go for great/weird stories over people who are famous. How else would you explain a whole week of music legends dedicated to the Lovin’ Spoonful? It’s still a great read even if you don’t know who they are.

We are surprised what we’ve learnt. Deep Blue Something‘s one hit ‘Breakfast At Tiffanys’ was actually inspired by ‘Roman Holiday’! KISS‘s logo is different in Germany for a very touchy reason. Graham Nash wrote one of his biggest hits on a dare. The comic book stuff has fascinated us for years. We are learning new stories about films and TV now, on a weekly  basis.

Again, we love a site that is well written and constantly updated. It looks a bit ugly but hopefully that will be fixed. Even if you are the biggest know-it-all there is, there will be something here for you.

Entertainment Legends Revealed – http://legendsrevealed.com/entertainment/

Or hop straight to Music – http://legendsrevealed.com/entertainment/2009/04/19/music-legends-history