Best of 2013 Rando Musings

This year I really got into Roman History, first courtesy Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast, and then Mike Duncan's History of Rome podcast. Both podcasts were recommended to me by good buddy and fellow traveler Mike R. Thanks duder! I whole-heartedly recommend both Hardcore History and History of Rome. Dan Carlin also does a political commentary podcast called Common Sense, and I'm continually blown away by how right on Carlin is. Neither Right nor Left, Carlin continuously hits the head on the nail of current political and social issues. I just love it.

Mike Duncan is now doing a podcast called Revolutions, in which he's going to cover various revolutions throughout world history. I'm going to finish History of Rome before I start Revolutions in earnest (I've listened to the first few episodes of Revolutions and enjoyed it); the Huns have made their first appearance on History of Rome so I'm nearing the end, I'm somewhere after the 150th episode, with each episode hovering under 30 minutes, I think.

I have also been trying to read Tom Holland's Rubicon for several months but I'm a bad reader. It's a cool book though.

Anyway, I read 1984, re-discovered Rodney Dangerfield, read some comic book trades, got into play by email Dungeons and Dragons with my buddies. Early this year I discovered memes but my fascination faded. I loved turntable.fm but they blew that and the site shut down. I met a lot of cool music fans thanks to that site. I got on Google Play instead of Spotify (Google Play is cheaper). Played a lot of Magic the Gathering Online and a lot of GOG games.

For me, 2013 was def the year of Flipboard. Fun to use on my phone.

My fave musical discoveries of 2013 were White Lung, Death Grips, Killer Mike and Big Freedia. I would provide links but, in the words of Big Freedia hisself, "YOU ALREADY KNOW!!!"

Cfit Remix and Some Other Fun Stuff

Despite having too many 45s in my Clean, Nice, Quiet queue already, no doubt enough to share until the End of the Internet, today I picked up a few more gems at Half-Priced Books. They are having a 20% off sale. So, while I go thru these, clean them up and give them a first listen...

Stream and download Cfit's Xmas treat - their song "Coke and Spiriters," as remixed by Viva Idiota, which is the new project of David Cantan, the dude from Dying Seconds.

I put back a couple of 45s at the store today because I searched for them on my phone and they were readily available for listen. Here's one that stood out - Battery Acid, featuring members of Mary's Danish:

Per that Mary's Danish wiki entry above, both lead singers of Mary's Danish sang back up on the Red Hot Chili Pepper's Mother's Milk, and one of the guitarists was in The Three O'Clock. The Three O'Clock's lead singer and bassist, according to the Three O'Clock wiki entry, coined the term "Paisley Underground."

There was a couple of 5 Royales 45s I picked up because I'd never heard of them, then after checking my mobile I saw they were readily available to listen to on der Internetzen, so I put them back. Just now I was looking for which Youtube vidja of theirs to share, and saw fellow music blogger Derek's Daily 45 just did a 5 Royales post on the 27th! Cool synchronicity. Check out Derek's Daily 45 post featuring the 5 Royales when you're done here!

Finally, the Clean, Nice, Quiet wife is watching Valley Girl. It has a cool soundtrack which includes this rad Sparks song, "Angst In My Pants." I've only very recently discovered Sparks and think they're neat:

Crapoulet Records Sampler + An International Feel for New Arrivals from Bandcamp

First up, here's a little sampling of new stuff from France's Crapoulet Records, whom I admire:

Sun Sick is from France, like the Coneheads. Really cool stuff:

Go ahead and check out this song from their June 2013 release because it's hyper-cool, as the French teens from 1994 might say:

I can't get enough of Sweden's Impo and the Tents:

I think these guys may be from Argentina:

Crapoulet has lots of cool international punk sounds, check 'em out when you're done here.

Continuing the international feel, these guys are from Barcelona:

As are these guys:

And these rockers:

...and so are these cats. Per la independencia dels Paisos Catalans!:

From Magdeburg, Germany:

From Toronto:

I love this, from Malaysia:

Back in Richmon, VA, some HC action is apparently going down:

And from Sacramento:

The Pizza Underground (2013)

The Pizza Underground bandcamp page has mysteriously disappeared...could it be releated to this:

Macaulay Culkin's pizza themed covers band get death threats from rival pizza-based act

Sunday Evening Bandcamp Sampler

I enjoy doing these CNQ bandcamp samplers. They're easy to write up and I get to listen to new stuff. Here's a couple of new punk tunes:

These guys are from Scotland:

From California:

Turntable.fm, a site which i've loved dearly these past couple years, is closing down tomorrow. Here's a Chicago band I found out about thanks to jammin with super-cool music freaks on that site: