LimeWire Music Blog

Think of us as providers of a weekly public service announcement. Whatever we can do to help you steer clear of unnecessary items and edge you closer to the greener grass of the path less traveled, well, that’s what we’re here for. So this week, we’ll wheedle, entice, cajole, whatever’s necessary in order to make you put down that Katy Perry Unplugged album and the umpteenth in-concert job by some Beatle guy, and seek out some dubby electro-drone damage, a little screwy jazz mind-bending, an old-school stomp-rock raveup, and to make it all go down easy, a surefire, gut-busting giggle fest.

Margaret Cho – Beautiful
If you like to laugh but you’re sick of that endless parade of dick-swinging, testosterone-overdose cases who seem to pass for standup comics these days, and and the thought of an evening with Lisa Lampanelli seems about as enticing as a colonoscopy without anesthesia, make the smart choice and go for Cho. Hey, she must be doing something right, it’s the lady’s fifth standup special. And you can bet that this audio companion to her new live DVD is full of irreverent, unconventional ideas about just what being “beautiful” means in our world.

Beak> – Beak>
Presumably, these Bristol boys included that annoying “greater than” sign not merely to indicate their superiority to anything that comes after them, but to differentiate themselves from that other Beak — you know, the one that gets all the attention. No, huh? Well, even after you dock them half a point for spelling, this trio makes their debut outing worthwhile. Geoff Barrow of Portishead fame teams with Massive Attack bassist Billy Fuller and Matt Williams for a sound that mixes ambient electronics, post-rock minimalism, murky, moody, guitar clatter, and more.

Bill Dixon – Tapestries For Small Orchestra
We don’t have a spycam trained on your birth certificate or anything, but odds are that Bill Dixon has been turning out challenging, downright confrontational avant-garde jazz longer than you’ve been alive. The trumpeter/composer/bandleader who made his lofty free-jazz rep playing with everyone from Archie Shepp to Cecil Taylor has more recently been working with a generation of disciples like post-rock poobah Rob Mazurek’s Exploding Star Orchestra. Mazurek and others figure into this double-length set of improvs designed to burn a hole in your brain and give your ears some sonic acupuncture.

Them Crooked Vultures – s/t
Everybody loves a nice, juicy supergroup they can sink their teeth into, and there haven’t been many good ones coming down the pike lately. So it’s difficult to resist the idea of this star-studded, hard-rocking power trio of Dave Grohl on drums, Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme on axe and throat, and none other than Mr. John Paul Jones on bass and keys. Together they make a big, booming sound that’s mature enough to show its roots in the kind of ’70s heaviness Jones helped invent, but forward-looking enough to avoid any kind of retro-minded classic-rock traps/tropes.