Free and Legal Download of the Week: Paleo - "The King James Fakebook"

I like free digital copies of music.  I also love being legitimate. So I am going to post links to free digital downloads on a semi-regular weekly-ish basis that will not get me in trouble with these guys.

I am loving Paleo's "The King James Fakebook."  He sounds like some of my favorite low-fi heroes, Daniel Johnston and June Panic.  This dude wrote and recorded a song every day for a year while traveling around the United States.  That makes him a pretty legit troubadour in my book.  I did not listen to them all, but here is one I enjoyed titled, "February 22nd, 2009" [legit].  I especially enjoyed his heart as six-sided die metaphor: "whose own six-sided heart he throws upon her even plane it rolls and rolls."



Here is the link to "The King James Fakebook" at Amazon.  4/5

Amazon decides $2 is a magic number; I agree. We become friends.

[OH SO SAD--ALREADY DEAD]
Amazon is really impressing me with its holiday specials.  I hope these sales are really successful and continue for a long time because $2 for a digital album is a hell of a price point.

Here are some of the $2 dollar goodies that are still available:
Arcade Fire's The Suburbs!  My favorite album of the year from my favorite band of the 2ks.











Mavis Staples You Are Not Alone. 8.0 on Metacritic.











The National's High Violet. 8.4 on Metacritic.

Sarah Bareilles' Kaleidoscope Heart. She seems to enjoy it.











LCD Soundsystem's This Is Happening.  8.4 on Metacritic.  Short samples on Amazon won't do this justice--find them on YouTube.

Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.

Vampire Weekend's Contra @ Amazon is my new 2 buck chuck

$2 @ Amazon today

P.S. VampWeek, I'm not the only one who cares about an Oxford Comma.

My Top Ten "The Mountain" T-shirt picks

Wear your totem animal on your chest as the ultimate metaphor for those nuanced emotional states you have been struggling to signal with normal clothing, overlooked actions, and ineffectual words.  Yes, "The Mountain" t-shirts will make you look sweet.  The real challenge here is to pick the shirt that will express your identity and not merely craft a persona. Choose wisely.

10.  "Bark At The Moon" is "Three Wolf Moon" with range.  This shirt lets people know that you can express your emo side with more than moon-howling.  You are also good at staring introspectively at the vast, empty wilderness, and being silently bummed out before bedtime.  This shirt, like its more famous cousin, is an analog for our animal natures, which are passionate and yet vulnerable. This combination of power and sensitivity worn "on the sleeve" seems to confer uncanny competitive advantage.

9.  The overly dramatic "Werewolf Transformation" is a more obvious metaphor for "The Mountain" patron's seething beast, rabid with chesty muscles and lust, just underneath the surface of this cotton-thin t-shirt and his gentlemen-like persona. Gentlemen-wearers (were/wear homophone ftw) will intrigue the ladies with the promise that they are one full-moon away from careening madness, and ladies who don this can properly identify themselves as receptive to savagery.  Oh yeah, vampires drool; werewolves rule.

8.  "Breakthrough Deer"--Same as above except this time it is a deer and not a man-beast just underneath the surface of thinly concealing decorum.  This is good for the "I may be shy, but I also have a horny stag in my chest"-look.

7.  "Lightning Rex" may seem like a children's shirt, but there is nothing like staring extinction in the face, especially such a toothy one, to sober you from the draughts of childhood fantasy.  Though this shirt appeals to any crowd's inherent affinity for dinos and lightning bolts, it is also a shirt for the buzz-kill realist, awakening party-goers to an appropriate humility.

6.  "The Pegacorn" is so rare that it may exist only in the myths told "from the lips of a ghost in the shadow of a unicorn's dream."  Yet even in these thrice removed meta-myths their existence is dubious.  Is it even possible for a unicorn and pegasus to breed? How was the artist able to add wings and a horn to a horse?  Yet there it is before you.  Wear it and bewilder everyone.

5.  "10 Kittens" is an obvious choice for hairy bearded guys.  Through the power of suggestion your bearded face will attract cute-hunting stares and friendly chin pets.

4.  "The Cow";Cows are noble and delicious beasts.  Wear this and people's subconscious desire to eat you will hopefully translate into goodwill--a plausible scenario given the West's vast accumulation of gratitude and guilt for the hamburger, which its citizens will freely express when presented with a cow that they cannot immediately eat (yes, even the mere image of one on your person).

3.   "The Mountain Yeti" inspires me to stay indoors.  He looks cold, lonely, and monstrous.  His particular suffering is sure to express my tortured soul.  Plus, check out that groin-area back-lighting!

2.  "His Divine Presence" features the white buffalo.  These are by far the coolest animals in God's creation since they prefigure the second coming of Christ.

1.  "Loving Wolves" is my number one pick because it is purple and these wolves are clearly in love.  I wonder how many successful marriages this shirt is responsible for?  These wolfies mate for life.

Free Amazon $3 Mp3 Credit = $1 Neon Bible

Enter GET3MP3S at this web address.  Just click on the "Enter Your Code" button.

After the code, albums like Arcade Fire's Neon Bible and Kanye West's latest indulgence will cost you a dollar.


For $2 you can get Wolf Parade's Expo 86 or Caribou's Swim.

Or for free (you'd even have a a dollar of credit left over) you can get 99 tracks of "dark" classical music.

Via Slickdeals

Sufjan busts some moves on Late Night--makes me giggle.

In case you missed it, Sufjan Stevens was on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon this last Friday.  He performed "Too Much" off "Age of Adz" with some fanciful garb, a ridiculous entourage, and silly yet groovy dance moves.



You crazy Suff Stuff.
Here is a free download of "I Walked" off of the same album.

I like to girl talk -- all day, baby

Illegal art is being hammered right now because it is hosting Girl Talk's new album All Day, which he is giving away for free, given the sample-heavy nature of his music.  You may be able to find a link to mirror site here.

He's Back! Three Keyboard Cat Moon Threadless T-shirt Reprint

Behold Fatso the cat on the ebonies and ivories with those ivory paws!  times (x) 3, plus (+) Moon.  This shirt is a delicious meme mash-up of Keyboard Cat and Three Wolf Moon (a t-shirt on Amazon.com currently with 1,828 reviews reporting its unusually beneficial effects.  Believe it or not, I bought the shirt when it had a mere five reviews--I regret my hipster-kitty early adoption snobbery.  It is now sitting in 30th place for best selling clothing item on Amazon, and it has been up there for some time).  The lady-killing potential of Keyboard Cat plus the mysterious mojo of Three Wolf Moon make this the preferred uniform for the seduction community.  Be careful wearing this around mirrors, or you may seduce yourself.  If you missed out on the first run of these, now is your chance.  Sign up for their newsletter and get a 7 dollar coupon: worth it.  Of course, you could save the coupon for one of their 10 dollar t-shirt sales.

November 2010 Playlist

YouTube playlists for the win.  Here are some old and new songs I am enjoying in November 2010.

1.  Caribou - "Odessa" - (Free at Amazon)
2.  Delorean - "Real Love"
3.  Candy Claws - "Sunbeam Show"
4.  M83 - "We Own the Sky"
5.  Deastro - "Light Powered"
6.  Sufjan Stevens - "All for Myself"
7.  The Tallest Man on Earth - "Like the Wheel"  - (Free at Amazon)
8.  Shearwater - "Rooks"
9.  DM Stith - "Pitty Dance"
10. Wilco and Billy Bragg (and Guthrie) - "Remember the Mountain Bed"
11. Jens Leckman - "Shirin"