Renfield – Los Bastardos Reunidos

October 3, 2025October 3, 2025 // 3 Comments

More AI Fun

These AI exposes popped up in my feed this week. The blatantly cynical fakery is actually pretty funny. I also like the Goonies shirt.

Apparently gullible music lovers trend Christian.

The existence of AI music doesn’t bother me. To my ears, much of the generic, auto-tuned, committee-written pop music of the past 20 years sounds like AI anyway, so why not? Music is strictly utilitarian for many people, something to have in the background while working. Or to soothe them after work. Or to fill the air at some god awful party. If AI works for them, that’s their business.

Of course there’s an ethical issue with the fake charity, but I can’t get very worked up over that either. That kind of crime requires enablers. Caveat emptor.

September 16, 2025September 16, 2025 // 4 Comments

Hey Punk!

It seems like everyone and his grandmother recorded “Hey Joe.” I don’t know who wrote it or who did it first, but the single we had lying around the Renfield household was by the Leaves. That’s the template for the garage-rock take on the song. The Standells are also in that vein. The Byrds cleaned it up a little. Love recorded a more garagey and psychotic take on the Byrds’ version ( I’m assuming Love’s came afterwards). Everyone knows Hendrix’s cover, which stands in its own category. As does the Mothers’, which came at the height of Zappa’s hippie-skewering phase. After all these years I still find this hilarious, especially the dueling monologues, one in each channel, during the closing mayhem.

July 20, 2025 // 5 Comments

Ye-Ye Rocks Out

There’s been a dearth of ye-ye goddesses around here lately. As remedy, here’s a track unusual for its distorted guitar.

July 8, 2025 // 4 Comments

I’m Not Impressed

This goes absolutely nowhere. I think AI will end up being just another tool. Many young people already prefer older music, and I think that will continue the more artificial music becomes.

May 30, 2025 // 3 Comments

For No Particular Reason

Enjoy. Or don’t.

May 21, 2025May 23, 2025 // 2 Comments

Pachel-Rebellion

We’ve discussed Pachelbel’s annoying Canon, one of the most loved and hated of works. Here’s a version I can almost get behind. This is played by some early music specialists (who are good when they stick to early music) in a way Pachelbel would recognize, and unlike the arrangement you usually hear, it actually moves along. On the other hand, the lush, syrupy version heard in waiting rooms, elevators, and businesses seeking an ambience of upscale exclusivity, is a 1960’s arrangement by the French conductor Jean-François Paillard. It doesn’t move; it just sits there and oozes. And it takes way too long considering it’s the same damn thing over and over. It’s a heavily romanticized take on a baroque piece, sort of equivalent to Muzak Beatles.

When the early music version was released, some purchasers angrily returned it because they wanted the jewelry store version.

While writing this, I was trying to remember what TV ads featured the Canon. I incorrectly remembered it as being in one of the Grey Poupon ads. A quick YouTube search revealed that one of those ads used part of one of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. When I arrive in the Great Beyond, J.S. Bach is going to KICK MY ASS. Because the Canon is still trash; it’s just way better trash when played fast.

May 19, 2025May 19, 2025 // 2 Comments

Lock Me In And Throw The Key Away

Into Cherry Blossom Clinic, that is. Glib songs of mental institutions were an interesting sub-genre in the mid sixties. Perhaps the strangest was this novelty hit. The B-side of it was the same song backwards. Yes, I owned a copy, as did many of my fellow devotees of MAD and CRACKED. I was in 4th grade, OK?

A darker take on such facilities came from Porter Wagoner. But even it sounded funny to anyone under thirty at the time, and to pretty much everybody now.

No insitutions in these, but I have to add these two faves. I’m wondering if our resident Pacific Northwesterner knew anyone lucky enough to have seen the Sonics in their glorious prime.

May 7, 2025 // 6 Comments