I had to blink twice and pinch myself at first. This was to good to be true:

AN ENTIRE ALBUM AS AN ODE TO HOTDOGS!

Think of 70′s Steely Dan, strip out the intelligent Lyrics and you’ve got a Zappa-esque Hot Dog Rock. Why bring up the Z-word? Because it’s actually very well played! McSAPRR stands for Matt Chertkoff Sings and Plays Rock & Rol (a New York based Jazz Guitar player with a great love for Hot Dogs).

Now Jazzrock is nowadays mostly played by over-studied session musicians with a lack of musical taste, and no feel for swing or rock whatsoever. NOT HERE SIR! Like I said, it’s well played and no 70s cliché is left untouched. The right guitars, the phased Rhodes Keyboards, the Hammond organs. The one moment the half time chorus starts (Hot Dogs don’t grow on trees), the other moment a long winding crunchy guitar solo making Bozz Scaggs proud (Hot Dog Money) , and the icing on the cake: a mono-synth solo (Beepers and Reefers)

I’m in love with this idea, I want this on my summer festival next season. There’ll be at least one person in the audience banging his head.

Listen and download this album here

www.hotdogrock.com

I know this stuff is being posted all over the net, but…omg I think I haven’t laughed this hard in… ehm… y’know.  Any way, the muppets got their own youtube channel. Right now I am praying that movies will be added on a regular basis. The stuff that is up now is so funny, I think I sprained my funny-bone.

I just ordered ‘Joco Looks Back‘, a greatest hits album by internet phenomena Jonathan Coulton (and I suggest you do the same). Cd Baby replied at my order with the following e-mail. Needless to say I am still recovering. Talk about costumer service!

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with
sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure
it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over
the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money
can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party
marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of
Portland waved "Bon Voyage!" to your package, on its way to you, in
our private CD Baby jet on this day, Wednesday, December 17th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby.  We sure did.
Your picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year."  We're all
exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Sigh...

--
CD Baby
the little store with the best new independent music
http://cdbaby.com cdbaby@cdbaby.com (503)595-3000

Comedy music duo Paul and Storm are going to celebrate the 25 days until Christmas with the 25 days of Newman. Yes 25 songs sung in a Randy Newman voice every day. It’s best to get started listening now instead of waiting for 25 days to listen to them all in a row. That would be ehm… mindwrecking I guess.
(what about the Schnauzer radio orchestra? I got something up my sleeve this Christmas no worries…)
Listen HERE

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Over at Viruscomix.com they have a deep understanding of what the view from the bandstand is. According to them, the audience is split up into 16 categories. And they are extremely right. (click the image to view the whole scene)

My favourites (and probably the most recognizables are nr. 3, nr.7 and nr.8. I ran into nr.8 in Norway. He liked the band but he was constantly giving our guitarplayer an angry look , pointing at me. Meaning; ‘give him another organ solo or else!’ (I like people with taste, but this was ridiculous)

Also do visit Viruscomix.com. Any site that has a ‘I’m an imbecile, get me out of here’-button linking to nickelback.com is on my friendslist.

This made my day. A clip from the Canadian show ‘the Ronnie Johns Half Hour’.