I’m a glutton every now and then when it comes to new music. Actually, I’m a binge-and-purger… I will get a ton of new music, then go a long time without buying or downloading anything new. Instead, I will just *listen* to all the music I get. I have compiled a list of darn cool tracks/albums that I’ve either recently downloaded or purchased. My birthday was about a week ago and I spent most of my money & gift certificates on CDs and books.

Here you go… For those looking for a quick hit, I highly recommend the following songs. The Songs with stars, don’t walk, run to Kazaa… if you can find ‘em there.

**Grandaddy - Now It’s On**
Grandaddy - El Caminos in the West
Grandaddy - Stray Dog & the Chocolate Shake
Fountains of Wayne - Stacy’s Mom
**Fountains of Wayne - Mexican Wine**
Fountains of Wayne - Hackensack
Fountains of Wayne - All Kinds of Time
**Long Winters - Scared Tonight**
Long Winters - Blue Diamonds
**Long Winters - Stupid**
Hawksley Workman - No Sissies
The Black Keys - She Said, She Said
Tegan & Sara - All You Got
**All-American Rejects - Swing, Swing**
All-American Rejects - Paper Heart
All-American Rejects - Your Star
**New Photographers - The Laws Have Changed**
New Photographers - It’s Only Divine Right
**New Photographers - The New Face of Zero and One**
New Photographers - Mass Romantic
Johnny Cash - Hurt
Johnny Cash - I Hung My Head
Notwist - Consequence
**Notwist - One With the Freaks**
**Beck - Lost Cause**
Beck - Lonesome Tears

If you want a steady diet of good stuff, I strongly suggest the following albums:

Fountains of Wayne - Welcome Interstate Managers
Grandaddy - Sumday
Long Winters - When I Pretend to Fall
New Photographers - Electric Version
Beck - Sea Change

Here’s what I bought or downloaded, but I haven’t listened enough to yet to recommend:

Liam Lynch - Fake Songs (Lynch is “Olly” of Sifl & Olly… along with Ringo on drums!!)
Radiohead - Hail to the Thief (metacritic.com loves ‘em.)
Notwist - Neon Golden (metacritic.com loves ‘em even more than Radiohead!! So far, it sounds amazing.)
Rooney - Rooney (Phantom Planet/Rushmore’s Jason Schwartzman’s brother’s band…)
Earlimart - Everyone Down Here (Jason Lytle of Grandaddy helped produce it)
Supergrass - Life on Other Planets (Uh, well, I bought this a while ago… and I thought I lost it before I could encode it to MP3… but I just found it! So I guess it fits in this category. I’m excited to finally listen to it.)
Sigur Ros - ( ) [ooookay, A.D… I’ll give it a try.)
Alaska! - Emotions (sounds pretty dang cool — CMJ gave it a “Best New Music” mark)
The Tyde - Twice (Never heard of them, but I bought this CD just because of the quote on the label from NME that read, “The Tyde are veterans of the mythical and idyllic West Coast psychedelic scene that existed before the whole of California went nu-metal after getting beat on by its dad. Hence this follow up to last year’s luscious ‘Once’ LP sounds really rather magnificent.”)

Tracks I have recently “rediscovered” thanks to relistening to old albums by artists with new CDs:

Fountains of Wayne - “I’ve Got a Flair” - If music were a drug, this song would be crack. Wait. it IS crack.
Grandaddy - “The Crystal Lake” - nine time winner of funniest bear costume scene in a video award… or not.
Grandaddy - “Hewlett’s Daughter”

Albums I want but can’t buy anywhere except online and I don’t want to buy online:

Death Cab for Cutie - The Photo Album
Death Cab for Cutie - We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes
Homunculus - Words (CMJ compares them to a Ben Folds/Guster combo… so I’m there)

Albums I am anticipating with every inch of my being:

Guster - Keep it Together (COMES OUT TOMORROW!!)

um, and that’s it. I’ll shut up now and go back to my ghetto headphones.

Hey. Today I was struck with the best idea that I have ever had in my entire life, besides my plans for an upside down swimming pool. My cousin, Ryan, came down from college today and was telling me and my sisters about all of his businesses. All that talk about businesses made me want to start a business of my own so I did some quick market research in my head. After thinking about what companies the Tri-Cities lacks, I realized the perfect business! Cotton candy! My plan is to get a cotton candy machine and make alot of cotton candy at my house and then bring it to places where there are alot of sugar addicted children. Unfortunately, my parents wont let me buy a ‘professional’ machine from ebay for just $50! Instead they are making me rent a machine a few times and see how it works out. But my main problem is a name for my company! I have no idea what to call myself! If anyone has any good cotton candy company names or marketing plans, then please e-mail them to me mailto:steve@mathcaddy.com.

My good ole cousin Stevieto is aaasking for these Wet Detectives trax. So, Steverino… here they are. Anyone else who wants them can have them too.

The Wet Detectives - We Saw a Need and We Filled It. (Right-click and Save as…)

“My Dog is a Man”
Written by Evan Gross, Adam Brault, Ryan Brault, & Matt Thompson, 1998. Performed by Evan Gross, Adam Brault, Ryan Brault, Matthew Maas, Eric Cadwell (laughing), and that’s it. Recorded and Mixed at SPU Recording Studios, Seattle, WA by Stacey Smith. All Rights Reserved, right?

“The Circus”
Written by Adam Brault, Matthew Maas, Evan Gross, & Ryan Brault, 2002. Performed by Adam Brault, Matthew Maas, Evan Gross, & Ryan Brault and that’s it except for all the people screaming in the background, some of which include various people, etc. Recorded and Mixed at SPU Recording Studios, Seattle, WA by Stacey Smith. All Rights Reserved, I hope…

“Tight”
Written by Evan Gross, 2002. Performed by Evan Gross, Ryan Brault, Matthew Maas, and that’s it. Recorded and Mixed at SPU Recording Studios, Seattle, WA by Stacey Smith. All Rights Reserved, I think.

Check this out.

And…. those who have seen me sign stuff know that, in a very small way, I’m living out what this guy did… every day in my own little way. (Although possibly not as completely off the wall… but hey, maybe I’ll start!)