Cool Free Music

In keeping with my (almost) new year's resolution to blog more often, even it it's just a quick hit, here's a nice freebie from amazon.com, a sampler of free tracks from the Yep Roc label, home of some great artists like Nick Lowe, Bell X-1 and Robyn Hitchcock. It's called, This is How I Roc

You're welcome!

CPF Wishes You a (Belated) Cool Yule

Hey there, CPFs.

I've been on Santa's naughty list, not doing the blog thing in a long time. Thankfully, he cut me some slack, and I had a great holiday, full of fun and nifty gifties.

As for the blog, I'm rethinking it and making plans to start the New Year with a change in format. (Feel free to let me know what you enjoy most and/or need less of.) Details as they develop, film at 11.

This year's Cool Yule compilation was finished about 4 pm on Christmas Eve, right after I filed my last Post stories for this year (actually, the stories will appear in the January 1st regional editions, so they are both the last stories of 2008 and the first of 2009). Anyway, so here's this year's Cool Yule deal...

Rather than distribute discs, I'm going the digital delivery route (and even so, I'm late!). The songs have been posted on my MobileMe site (another Apple perk) and can be downloaded by any and all who know the URL and password. So, send a comment, give me your email eddress and I will let you know how to grab it.

And in the further spirit of giving, with immediate gratification, here's a nice song, called "Rabbit Ears", by the band Pompeii, courtesy of the band's label, Eyeball Records.

A little background: Pompeii's sophomore release, "Nothing Happens for a Reason," was released in October 2008 and produced by CJ Eiriksson (Jack's Mannequin).

One of the ingredients of the new CPF Blog will be more free music!

So, that's all for now.
Happy, Happy, Merry, Merry.

see you again before 2009.

Who Gives a ^$#@ about an Oxford Comma?

The delightful Vampire Weekend asked the musical question last night at the 930 Club at their second show in two nights. In answer to that particular question - I generally avoid such punctuation (it's also known as the serial comma, the one that follows a word in a series, right before the word "and," as in "apples, peaches, and pumpkin pie." I don't see the need for that comma)
The bigger question for those of us gathered in the sold-out club was whether the band, whose album blasted onto the scene earlier this year as one of the best and brightest new acts in long memory - and still continues to charm - could bring the sound home live. So glad to report that they did, in spades. Played the whole album, plus a few new songs that bode extremely well for the next release, and still came in at just about one hour on stage.

But none of us felt cheated. The drummer kicked everything up another notch - the usual wonky DC crowd actually kinda sorta danced a bit - and the lead singer radiated cute.
Also helping to make the night a full event of fun was opener, The Teenagers, whose lead singer drips irony in a way that would be positively annoying if it weren't so utterly amusing. The sound is herky-jerky rhythms that stood up well as a companion to Vampire Weekend (of course, the Talking Heads songs we heard in the break showed where all these rivers run back to) topped by deadpan monolog lyrics that occasionally bordered on the profane and yet didn't piss me off.
I downloaded
The TEENAGERS - Reality Check
the day of the show so I could get a taste of what was to come. Enjoying it again today (shocked to hear that "Homecoming" really said what I thought it did last night) , though it's still the lead singer's arch charisma that really brings it home.

Anyway, Ferguson is a repeat, so I'm off to bed.