Orange Alert's Music Minute

A message from Cotton Jones Basket Ride:

On May 13th, I'll be releasing a Cotton Jones EP called, "The Archery" via Quite Scientific records from Michigan - good friends of mine. Shortly thereafter, we'll be doing another EP, before compiling the EP's into a comprehensive 12" down the road.

I have a full length finished, and am just figuring a few things out.... (label, timeframe, etc). Hopefully it will be available sooner than later. Let me know if you have any more questions. Thanks man, and have a great day. See you in June. - m.nau

Listen to: Chewing Gum (mp3) from The Archery

Cotton Jones Basket Ride will be appearing at the House Cafe (DeKalb, IL) on June 21st.

When do you know its over? Why do good bands have to break-up? One of my favorite local bands, The Narrator are going to play two final shows and then move on. Releasing four albums in four years on Flameshovel records, Sam Axelrod, James Barron, Jesse Woghin, have amassed a catalog of songs that will live to tell the story of The Narrator.

Listen to: Surfjew (mp3) from All to the Wall (2007)

Their final Chicago show will be on May 3rd @ The Empty Bottle @ 10:00pm.

Make Believe is real! These Chicago rockers are releasing their third full-length album on Flameshovel records on 4/29. Theirs is a complex sound of filled with quirky guitar lines and random drumming, strange song titles and interesting lyrics. If they didn't rock so hard they might even be called complex. To really understand Make Believe you have to see them perform live. Drummer Nate Kinsella is absolutely incredible as he drums, play keys, and shakes a lot of other percussion instruments all at the same time.

The soon-to-be released Going to the Bone Church pushes their sound to the next level and forces you to believe that they are real.

Listen to: For Lauri Bird (mp3)

Make Believe are playing a free show on May 25th @ The Double Door.

In 2005, Firewater's Tod A embarked on what would become a three year sabbatical through the Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent and South East Asia. He had recently split with his wife; George W. Bush had just been re-elected; New York, his home for the last 20 years, had become a cold and foreign place. He wasn't even sure he wanted to make music anymore.

Recording with a single microphone and a laptop in his pack, he captured performances with a vast array of musicians across India and Pakistan--and eventually Turkey and Israel. Bhangra and sufi percussion would form the basis for the songs he wrote along the way--songs about the world he left behind ("This Is My Life", "Electric City"), politics ("Borneo", "Hey Clown"), and dislocation ("6:45", "Feels like the End of the World"). Tod's acerbic wit shines on The Golden Hour, elucidating both the beauty and the absurdity of the world.

Listen to: Borneo (mp3) and Feels Like The End of The World (mp3)

There is old saying that you have to take the bad with the good... or something. Well the latest mix from La Grève Générale mixes both and does it well. It takes a great amount of skill to effectively mix Fiest, Cut Copy, The Smiths, Cadence Weapon, and Klaxons with Bubba Sparkxxx and 2 Live Crew. Check it out for youself. (YSI)

I have the full tracklist, but it is 49 tracks long. I may post it in the comments.

The Peel Back: Anarchy 6 Hardcore Live! (1988, Giant/Gasatanka Records)

I have always been interested in the punk scene, but I have never felt hardcore enough to actually say I listened to punk music. Back in high school I briefly messed around with a punk rock girl, at the times she was actually my good friend's girlfriend but that's another story altogether, and she completely changed the way I view the punk sound. She had this all back mixtape with a bright red anarchy symbol on the front that she would always play in her bedroom. I'm still not sure what she found so romantic about lyrics like "Slam, Spit, Cut your hair, Kill your mom!", but who was argue with the tiny punk on top of me.

Anyway, Anarchy 6... I can not find a lot of information on them, but from what I can tell they only released one album. I know the lead singer's name is Chemical Warfare, and they like to sing about killing people, specifically hippies.

"Old Punks", "Attitude/"Unite & Fight", "Suburban Jail", "Drugs Aren't Great", "Victims Of The Government","Livin' In Society", "New Age/Old Lie", "Third World Vacation", "Skate & Destroy", "Negative Threat", "Crackwagon", "Next Stop Nowhere", "Babylon Rules", "Look Fast To Be Fast", "See You In The Pit", & "Slam, Spit, Cut You Hair, Kill Your Mom!" (mp3)

MP3 courtsey We Got Power films: check out their site for a lot of great punk history.