Song for November 22nd, 2010: "Palaces of Montezuma" by Grinderman

And today's song is...Palaces of Montezuma by English rock-band Grinderman. Grinderman was formed back in 2006 in London, UK and it consists of members Nick Cave ( on vocals, guitar, organ, and piano), Warren Ellis (bouzouki, Mandocastor, violin, viola, acoustic guitar, and backing vocals), Martyn P. Casey (bass guitar, guitar, and backing vocals) and Jim Sclavunos (drums, percussion, and backing vocals). All members in Grinderman were also members in the former group called Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, basically it was a name change. Palaces of Montezuma comes off of their latest album release (September 2010) titled Grinderman 2. Nick Cave has those very unique sounding vocals, and the band is obviously multi-talented, so check them out!

Song of the Day for November 21st, 2010: "Cabin Fever" by Howl

Today's song is...Cabin Fever by Australian alternative-punk-band Howl. Howl formed at Ballarat High School and apparently are named after the Allen Ginsberg poem of the same title. The band consists of members Daniel Marie (Drums), Tim Street (Guitar), Michael Belsar (Vocals and Guitar), Lachlan Morrish (Vocals), Galen Strachan (Keyboards and Vocals),  and Johnathon Crawford (Bass Guitar). For more info and songs by the band check out their Myspace page HERE, or there Unearthed page HERE. Cabin Fever comes off of their Brothers in Violence EP (released September 2010), which is available in US Itunes store now, woot woot!

Party Ben Mashup - Tegan & Sara vs Mylo - "Walking With a Ghost in Paris"

Brief Book Review for "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle

I have deemed it now time to start adding a few book reviews onto this blog to enrich the content a bit more, which has been mostly music and a few movie reviews. So, here it is folks, my very first book review, and the book is....A New Earth, by author Eckhart Tolle: If you were to read one book of all the books out there I would recommend this one. Eckhart Tolle has written a few other books as well, including the well known Power of Now. I read the Power of Now about 13 years ago when I was in highschool still. Now I remember thinking that the stuff he was discussing and talking about made sense, but of course that was my first time being exposed to the material and it didn't really stick that well. A few years ago Tolle rolled out A New Earth, which I found to be much more palatable material, and well, it just clicked with me the first time I read it, and I think it would be the same for most people. Now, do not get me wrong and think that I am putting down the Power of Now in any way, now, when I re-read the Power of Now I find it much more digestible (is that a word?). Once you have been exposed to multiple sources/authors and spiritual teachers, and as you progress (if it can be called progress) down a Spiritual path that is right for you, you will naturally become familiar and multifaceted when it comes to this material. Thus, you will have been exposed to many different perspectives on the same topics, as well as have expanded range.

Now if I had to give an explanation for how I view the Power of Now vs A New Earth (and I would like to hear the views of others who are familiar with these books) I would describe the Power of Now as being more masculine or slightly more intense and in your face (I see the color green when I think of it, whatever that could mean), and I feel that the A New Earth is a step back, more gentle, and sort of leads you by the hand, so to speak through material that has become a bit clearer (color of lavender comes to mind when I think of it). Now Tolle is one particular filter through which the information comes into this world, as is anyone that the material comes through, and like all things, with time, these filters change, and so perhaps the teachings became clearer and that is why it was clearer, or perhaps it was me, or a combo of all the above. In the end I say read both of them, but for the purpose of this article A New Earth (and the audio-book version for all of you long-distance-commuters) is my first recommendation to those of you starting out on a spiritual path, or any path for that matter. I have included the intro excerpt to the audio-book as read by Eckhart Tolle, which was found on youtube.com, just to get you interested, enjoy...

The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 or fewer of the 100 books listed below!

The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. Check out the list and see if you are up to par with the BBC. Also, I posted this because I thought it was an interesting list, and a good challenge to all those of you who would like to read more, but don't know where to bloody start or what to read next!! How many have you read hmmm???
1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

6 The Bible

7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four- George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials/The Golden Compass – Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch – George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis

34 Emma – Jane Austen

35 Persuasion – Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere

39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne

41 Animal Farm – George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving

45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding

50 Atonement – Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel

52 Dune – Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

72 Dracula – Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses – James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal – Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession – AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks

94 Watership Down – Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Song of the Day for November 20th, 2010: "Echoplex (feat. Mai)" by Miami Horror

And the song for today is....Echoplex (feat. Mai) by Australian electro-pop group Miami Horror. Miami Horror has been posted a few times on this vlog, so to remind you who they are I will paste a portion from an earlier post. Miami Horror is a four-piece group out of Melbourne, Australia which has been active on the music scene since 2007 and consists of members Benjamin Plant (producer), Josh Moriarty, Aaron Shanahan, and Daniel Whitechurch. The group has released an EP titled Bravado (2008), as well as a full studio album titled Illumination (just released in August of 2010) from which today's song comes off of. Much of Miami Horror's music has been influenced by 70's and 80's dance-pop and electro-synth-pop, which makes for an interesting mixture going into the '10s. Echoplex comes off of their Illumination album, and features the enchanting vocals of Mai.  I recommend checking out both the Bravado EP and Illumination album as they both have great tracks on them!

Party Ben/VJ Jaren Mashup "Tender Umbrella"

Song of the day for November 19th, 2010: "I Love U So" by Cassius

Today's song is...I Love U So, by French house music duo Cassius. Cassius consists of music producers Philippe Zdar (Philippe Cerboneschi), and Boom Bass (Hubert Blanc-Francard) who originate out of Paris, France. I <3 U SO comes off of their most recently released Rawkers E.P., which was just released in October 2010. In fact they also have a full studio album about to be released next month, titled 1999 which is bound to be good. I would also like to add here that I am still wondering when itunes or amazon is going to start offering Cassius's 2006 Toop Toop single, which is my personal favorite by the duo! Come on then itunes!!

#41 of VJ Samsonite's Top 100 80's Dance Hits Countdown: "Never Let Me Down Again" by Depeche Mode (1987)

Bonjour!! Here we are again, and #41 of the countdown is...Never Let Me Down Again, by some true English synth-electronica gods..Depeche Mode. Depeche Mode (meaning 'hurried fashion' or 'fashion dispatch' in French) started out in 1980 in Basildon, Essex, UK, and presently consists of members David Gahan (lead vocals), Martin Gore (keyboards, guitar, vocals, and chief songwriter after 1981), and Andrew Fletcher (keyboards). Depeche Mode originally began when Vince Clarke and Andrew Fletcher started a band by the name of No Romance In China, and a few others, then in 1980 the original band members that formed Depeche Mode would end up being Dave Gahan, Martin Gore,  Andrew Fletcher, and Vince Clarke. Vince Clarke left the band in 1981 following the release of their debut Speak & Spell album, and he was replaced by Alan Wilder who stayed with the band up until 1995 when he also left leaving the remaining trio what it is today. Depeche Mode are considered one of the most successful (if not the most) electronic band in music history as they have generated #1 albums in the UK, US, and Europe as well as charting 48 of their tracks on the UK Singles Chart. According to EMI they have sold over 100 million albums and singles worldwide, and apparently Q Magazine named them "the most popular electronic band the world has ever known." Now I originally was going to place their single "Enjoy the Silence" at #41, but then I realized that it was actually released in March of 1990 (recorded in 1989) making it just out of reach of being an 80's release, so maybe when I make a 90's countdown in the future and on a different blog I could include Enjoy the Silence, and just because its not 80's doesn't mean its not a great track!! Now, as for Never Let Me Down Again, it was first released on Depeche Mode's 6th studio album in 1987 titled Music for the Masses. It would peak at #22 in the UK, #2 in West Germany, and become a top 10 hit in various other European countries. Now, when listening to the lyrics one will find that the song is clearly about drug-use and the endless search for that fleeting high, only to be inevitably 'let down again.' Well, there it is peeps, #41, and this countdown seems to be a fluid entity, but as they say.. thems the breaks. Now the video is a live version, because once again youtube doesn't have an embeddable recorded version of the song so this is what we have to put up with.

Brief Movie Review for "Ondine" (2010)

Ondine (2010)  3.5/5 Stars ***

Interesting story, not too believable and a bit predictable but worth a one-time watch. The part that gets me is that we are all supposed to believe that these people swimming in the coastal waters just off of Ireland aren't all getting hypo-thermia?? Maybe there is some sort of warm ocean current around the shores of Ireland that I am unaware of but I can't imagine that those waters could be warm enough to even want to consider jumping in. Note that there is somewhat predictable twist to this one.  

Song for November 18th, 2010: "Sugarhoney" by Ross de Chene Hurricanes

Today's song is...Sugarhoney, by Australian indie-garage-rock band Ross de Chene Hurricanes. Ross de Chene Hurricanes originate out of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia and consists of members Justin Kuchel (on Drums), and Mark Doman (on Vocals and Guitar). For any further info on this band check out their myspace page HERE, and if you wish to download this song and a few others as free and legal mp3 downloads check out their Unearthed page HERE. Enjoy!Triple J Hottest 100 Vol 17

Marc Johnce Mashup: Dizzee Rascal vs. Duck Sauce

Song of the Day for November 17th, 2010: "It Takes a Muscle" by M.I.A.

Today's featured song is...It Takes a Muscle, by British singer/songwriter/rapper/record producer M.I.A.  M.I.A. (actual name is Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam) originates out of Mitcham, South London, UK. She began her career as a visual artist and designer in West London and started up on the music scene in 2004, and after a couple of hit singles she was nominated for an Academy Award, 2 Grammy Awards, and a Mercury Prize. If you check out her wikipedia page HERE, you will see just how many other awards she has been nominated for and won. Her mother works as a seamstress in London, and she notes fashion and guerilla art as being big influences on her style and music. It Takes a Muscle is actually a cover recording of the original 1982-release track recorded by Dutch band Spectral Display, which M.I.A. has clearly added a reggae-style twist to. This song was released on her 3rd studio album titled Maya which was released on July 10th, 2010. The Maya album has been her highest charting album to date, as it reached #21 on the UK Albums Chart, #9 on the US Billboard 200, and #1 on the U.S. BillboardDance/Electronic Albums. Booyakasha!