What a fantastic track this is. Props to Razorlight frontman Johnny Borrell and his Xfm Sunday Service show for the heads up here. Driving home through a dark, cold, wet and windy evening last night I caught a bit of the singers one hour show, and was quite literally blown away by the music I was hearing. Amazing stuff.

Drugs to it to ya, rock, rock, rock! Super excited on this one, as I myself was only able to finally hear the full version of this just a few minutes ago! As always Optimo comes up trumps with the super amazing shit, and they continue the trend with the recently started running of a new series of podcasts.

We're celebrating a fresh addition to my music collection, and hopefully a fresh addition to yours as well, with this joyous piece by this band North Carolinaian multi-instrumentalists, the Squirrel Nut Zippers! I've battled for a number of days now to come up with any additional creative input to add to the post and our featured track - so I'll leave you with this : download it, it's good! Plus it did receive major MTV and radio airplay on it's release in 1996. Dig it.

Following my previous Dakar & Grinser post with yet another cover version tonight. This time around we have a Bob Dylan cover to lay down, and an equally fantastic version it is too by Norwegian singer-songwriter Even Johansen a.k.a Magnet. I must admit that until a minute ago I thought that Magnet were a band from the north of England somewhere... Cheers Wikipedia for that one.

Copped the 2007 release EP Is Is just a couple of days ago. It issssssssssss the BOMB! What the fuck YYY's?!?! Killing it, killing it, killing it, killing it, killing it, killing it, killing it, killing it, killing it, killing it, killing it, killing it, killing it, killing it, killing it, killing it, killing it, killing it, killing it... lazy type-up I know, but seriously this is all I can say about the music they put out. Rarely do I listen to full albums these days, though their stuff see's heavy rotation down here in South West 19.

Back with a bit of belter to help ease the pain of having your fav music blog AWOL for the past ten days. Been a bit busy doing absolutely nothing all this time, though have recently picked up a new bicycle which I have big plans to use as the catalyst for the new and improved healthy goal setting & achieving me! Part of that plan is to also get back to posting on da regular, so let's see how that goes...

Extended post break. Sorry! Moving on... "Sublime utilized a genre-blending mash-up style which incorporated elements of dub, reggae, ska, punk rock, improvised dancehall, hip hop, psychedelic rock and acoustic rock...," <- words all nicked from Wikipedia, though it's all true and does the trick in introducing this absolutely ace band of Californian music men.

Always a fan of something a little bit different, and this is something completely just that. Ninja Tune label artist DJ Food behind the controls on this one, but it's really all about the weird and wonderful spoken word lyrics provided by our man Ken Nordine. Wikipedia said if first but it's true that Ken Nordine is not someone you might recognise by name or by sight, though it's when you hear his voice that the feeling of something familiar becomes apparent. Take a listen and see...

Another Optimo tagged track upload for you. This of course meaning that it the tune first came to light off of the back of me having heard it for the first time through one of their stunning DJ Mixes, and I'm now getting to share some of the love by passing it on. First of my foreign language uploads, and I dont know about but I couldn't really be bothered with what it is that she's actually saying, as being French it all sounds pretty fantastic regardless.

Circa 2004 - 2005 I was a regular on a popular Bootleg / Bastard Pop mp3 upload website called Get Your Boots On. Over that time I certainly went through more shitty uploads than good, though the gems that were sifted out from the dross did prove super impressive. I will from time to time throw up a few of these classics as we go forward, and it's today that I go with my first related post.

I got a great comment today against a post that I did a couple of months back covering the fantastic reggae tune "Black Star Liner," by Reggae Regular. What set this one apart from all the other comments received thus far was that this one came from the actual producer behind this 30yr old release. Kind of made my day that, as I was still sitting in late at work and thought I'd just check in on my site quick before packing up for the day.

Been wanting to throw this up for a while now, though each time I come to post I'm reminded why I hadn't done it previously. Basically there's just nothing to link. No news, no vids, no nothing... nada! And I myself dont have any related stories, so it's going to be a quiet one from me. Credited heads up to the magnicent Optimo crew on this one. Just one of many many many killer pieces of music that they've turned me on to.

I have loads and loads of respect for scratch DJ's. Too rarely do I get to experience their stuff live, though on those rare occassions I'm pretty much always blown away by their creativity, as well as the skill employed in making it all come together in the way that they do. I mean who's never given a deck a quick little cut when the chance presented itself??

Digging into the personal memories here today, and quite a deep set that this man's music has formed a part of at that. A nobody to most, is our man Sixto Diaz Rodriguez, but to a lot South Africans and Australians he is a genuine musical hero. His is the story that most definitely, and accurately, defines that classic term of "cult hero." And to find out why, I would like to suggest that you click this Wikipedia LINK to read more.