The Signal Music Weblog

I gotta admit, I get real sick of hearing the same mediocre musical artists working the BART circuit. Except, maybe, for that punk dude who does Johnny Cash covers. He's awesome.

But NYC's got miles underground and you get all sorts of strange happenings and musical magic. Like, for example, something I found stumbling around on YouTube: The Stumblebums.

A punk brass band trio composed of snare drum, tuba, and trumpet, with the trumpet player also wailing out some gravely Tom-Waits-kinda vocals to bounce off the hard subway walls. That's pretty awesome.

If you live in New York, are your bosses usually cool if you say the reason you're in late to work is you were commuting and you had to stop and listen to band?

The Signal: EP051 - A final stand against the end of the year. A collection of eclectic sounds that may be pleasing to no one but me. Are you like me?

So what do you need to know? The music is available for a limited time, so download it when you're able. The image above is a detail from a larger work by the very talented Jason Chan, all copyright, etc. reserved by him. I'm hoping some day he makes a print available. You should be sure to take a look at the work on his site, it's amazing.

Notes are under the cut. Tracklisting is in the file's id3 tags. Questions or comments can be left below or emailed to whatever, so long as it ends in @signalstation.com.

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So there's a duo that's coming out with an album in February, going by the name of N.A.S.A. It's Spike Jonez's brother and a professional skateboarder, but they must have a powerful address book, because they have TONS of guest stars lined up for the album. You can get a sneak peak of their eclectic funk by checking out the best video this year to feature a former member of the Talking Heads, a Brazilian guitarist known for his great Bowie covers and a DJ who's opened for the Rolling Stones.

Trapped in a Chimney: the 2008 mix - We did it last year and didn't learn our lesson, so here we go again. For regular visitors of the SignalStation weblog, we present to you a half hour of not-terrible holiday music. Note: I don't care much about the holidays, and less about holiday music, so it's stuff that I think is decent despite being holiday music. And the requisite mash-ups and whatnot appear.

What do you need to know? The track is available for a limited time. The image is courtesy of trasroid, who was kind enough to put it up under a Creative Commons license. Notes are under the cut. Comments are appreciated. Enjoy whatever holidays you're fond of. Oh, and the mix has profanity, so don't play it for your granny. Unless your granny is cool.

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The Signal: EP050 - You maniacs! You blew it up!

Yes. Yes we did. It's the big 5-0, and the Signal celebrates with a vinyl-fueled team up with Emcee Child. We put our heads and record collections together to put together an extra-long Signal for you, hand-picked and needle-tickled. The whole mess was recorded live! You hear it like we heard it! (More or less. Okay, I did a little post-production, but not much.)

Here's all you need to know: We're trying a new download spot, so if you like it better or like it worse, lemme know. It'll still expire, so don't sleep. The tracklist is in the id3 tags of the file. Notes are after the MORE break. We hope you like it.

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