Throughout his life, the late Miles Davis struggled to cultivate a decent relationship with WhiteDevil Honkey-Caucasians. He once reportedly said:

“If somebody told me I had only one hour to live, I’d spend it choking a white man. I’d do it nice and slow.”

Personally, I think that may be the greatest quote ever. It’s funny.

But then I have no problem mining a laugh from something that might be direly offensive. Call it a 21st Century reflex, but I accept the fact that two frequently overlapping magisteria, Despair and Absurdity, govern our tragicomical world.

But how far do these magisteria extend into the realm of music?

[Read more →]

Tags: Michael Cade's audio files by Michael Cade
No Comments »

Bjork, Bjork, Bjork — it’s so fun to say.

Below is a four-ply suite of Bjork information — a “Bjorkalogue.”

BJORKALOGUE PART I: Iceland On the Isthmus

I enjoy the music of Bjork. I also like her old band, the Sugarcubes.

Recently my appreciation for these Icelanders resurfaced in a random way.

[Read more →]

Tags: Michael Cade's audio files by Michael Cade
No Comments »

It’s rare that I stumble upon an album in the same year it’s released. That happened more often when I was younger. Back then, time moved more slowly. Polaroids and phone booths were the proud faces of instant gratification.  If I wanted some gossip on the pending divorce of David Lee Roth and Van Halen, I had to wait for Rockline or buy an issue of Hit Parader while grocery shopping with my mom at Cub Foods.

These days, the tsunami of instantly available information makes it tough to stay current. Moreover, bands and labels package and distribute music in more abstract ways than in 1987, when Debbie Gibson made your Jim Dog quiver.

So what follows is a list of albums released in 2010 that I never sat down and gave proper attention to. They zipped right by me. Had they come out 25 years ago, I would’ve known every track by heart.

[Read more →]

Tags: Michael Cade's audio files by Michael Cade
1 Comment »

Like so many others, I like to take personal inventory at year-end — examine data; review numbers; analyze.

Luckily for stat nerds and music geeks like me, that process is more data-intensive than ever. Last.FM, for instance, has charted my music-listening habits since 2007. And in the past year, I integrated my libraries from Mog and Pandora into Last.FM’s “scrobbling” machine, so my database of  listening trends is far-reaching and vast.

Join me as I immerse myself in the data bog. The wiggly abyss of sound.

[Read more →]

Tags: Michael Cade's audio files by Michael Cade
No Comments »

It’s no secret that this reporter loves the Russian Web site Pravda.

Pravda distills world news and current events into an aggregate of truth and beauty. Blood-red, Putin-flavored beauty.

Thus it comes as no surprise that Pravda contains the world’s greatest music coverage.

Some excerpts are provided below.

[Read more →]

Tags: Michael Cade's audio files by Michael Cade
No Comments »

The author of “Audio Files” is beset by holiday commitments right now (and butterflies) and won’t return to his full glory until next week.

In the meantime, he lazily offers a random sampling of the first 15 tracks that appear in his Last FM library.

It’s the birth of a meme.

The rules

• Post your own random 15 in the comments here or at your own blog/Web site. (No cheating, I don’t care how embarrassed you are. You can’t supplant Creed with Stereolab, and the provision of Air in lieu of White Lion will mark you with the scent of a dullard.)
• If you have HTML skills, please post an image of the third artist and the ninth artist on your list via Google Images or Flickr.
• Lastly, go here and read about the sentience of facial hair. (If you need a refresher course, go here.)

Onward!

[Read more →]

Tags: Michael Cade's audio files by Michael Cade
1 Comment »

Quick story.

A lifelong friend who moved to Nashville years ago and became, through his own hard work and determination, a music industry power broker, shared a great anecdote with me last night.

Apparently, at an industry confab one day, an iconic figure materialized and announced (in a very dignified British accent):

“So…

…I’m Robert Plant.

Can we just move on?”

From that point forward, the crowd returned to its busy, beehive way. But only at Plant’s insistence, of course.

It reminded me of an entertaining Steve Albini interview that Mark Prindle conducted a while back.

[Read more →]

Tags: Michael Cade's audio files by Michael Cade
2 Comments »

Last Friday, after witnessing Jason Bonham’s Led-Zeppelin Experience, pal Rob and I had a big discussion about music, eventually getting to the brilliance of 1980s pop. (We were unaware that, earlier, a jihadist had tried to vaporize us. It was a strange night.)

Recall that 80s pop — even at its most putrid  – had a remarkable and rarely discussed quality. For instance, beneath the noxious pep of Wham! was a foundation of extremely high-caliber musicianship.

[Read more →]

Tags: Michael Cade's audio files by Michael Cade
3 Comments »

I love a well-written band bio. Nothing’s worse, after all, than the standard press-kit drivel churned out by music industry publicists, e.g.

“The Frayed Knots, based out of Portland, Oregon, met at Reed College in 1989 when singer Jon Yu was attracted to bassist Mary Byrne‘s remarkable collection of morose poetry LPs and scat-themed zines. The rest, as they say, is indie rock history.”

BLAH! Boring Town.

That’s why, several years ago, I squealed with uncapped excitement when I stumbled upon the biography for Seattle grunge pioneers TAD. Outside of some hyper-wondrous stuff that Gregg Turkington wrote for Amarillo Records and various obscure zines, the TAD bio was as irreverent, ridiculous and funny as anything around.

Years later, I’m happy to report that, aside from a stray typo here and there, the TAD bio remains a divine piece of rock’n'roll scripture. It has aged well. Strangely, a Google search yields various incarnations of the masterpiece. While digging through my hard drive a day or two ago, though, I discovered a version that is nearest and dearest to my heart.

Below are some excerpts. [Read more →]

Tags: Michael Cade's audio files by Michael Cade
No Comments »

Recently, a great idea came to me.

Sadly, it came about seven years too late.

In short, I thought of something that might have greatly improved the life of the late musician and artist Wesley Willis.

[Read more →]

Tags: Michael Cade's audio files by Michael Cade
2 Comments »