On the 25

Announcing: The First Ever Honest Engine 25mb EP!

You see, I wanted to have one of those fancy MP3 blogs all the kids are talking about, but I don't have enough room on my state-mandated server.

So what do I do? I put up brief EPs for a limited time, then take them down in two weeks or so. Maybe someday, I'll have enough cash to buy real web hosting.

Now, know that the reason why I'm doing this is because I love the music that I'm putting up. All of it is mine, either purchased or sent to me as promos, and I've ripped the mp3s because I think more people should hear it. I'm not going to be putting up a bunch of major label (or even major indie) songs, because you've probably already heard them. Even if I thought about dropping some Mekons in there.
Besides, those folks have plenty of bandwidth. Go get some songs from them dircetly.

But, just as a note, if any of the bands I feature ever get surly and want off, that's not a problem. Just lemme know.

And now, onto the first ever 5²mb EP: Move quickly, because they won't last.

Dabenport's loping grace and sparse beauty come through on Finds You Well. It's off of their self-titled debut, now reissued on Fall Theory records (who have an incredibly shitty over-Flashed site, otherwise I would have linked directly). It's the type of country music you play when you're stepping through an airport terminal, wanting to be in two places at once.

I bought a copy of Dream Magazine while I was in Atlanta about three years ago now. I was doing a MasterCard Priceless Edge internship (I couldn't find a good link), and felt like I was the only one with decent taste in music. But with this magazine came a CD, full of good and weird and fun music (like Magical Power Mako and Mandible Chatter), and one of those tracks was the Spectral Light And Moonshine Firefly Snakeoil Jamboree's Chilly Winds. I haven't been able to find anything about them before or after, but it's a great song and one I hope leads to me finding more about them.

The Rants, who have retreated to the barren lands of Detroit (where they seem to be able to gig al the time, as opposed to the once a month Ann Arbor/Ypsi circuit) used to be one of this town's best bands. Then they had a personelle split (on one side: "It's hard when you want to play, and all he wants to do is take drugs." On the other: "I wanted to live a little, and he just kept getting more uptight.") where both parties are now happier, but their music isn't as consistently good (though it is, in fact, still good). Hell or High Water was one of their best songs off of the album "Get Back Into It," which seems to be out of print for all time now.

Stylex is part of the grand tradition of Ohio bands that sound like Devo. No, wait, that's not fair. They sound like Devo and Braniac. Pretty much. Well, y'know how "electroclash" got all popular there for a minute, what with Danse Macabre and The Faint and Adult. and all the other queers with asymetrical hair and jerky, unsmiling dance moves? Stylex was a bit ahead of the curve, but because they're from Ohio, it didn't count. Sea Of Numbers is one of my favorite songs, off of their album Wonder Program. You can apparently buy it through their website, but they don't allow for direct linking (only to the main page) so they'll have to deal with you when you go there.

The last track on this bi-weekly EP hasn't even been released, honestly. It comes from the Livejournal of a guy named Isaac Schankler. He desires to be a great classical (or whateverthefuck composed music is called these days) composer, but he's actually a great pop song writer. Kind of like Irving Berlin, if everything you knew about Irving Berlin were wrong. He also plays in the klezmer band Into The Freylakh, but this isn't a Klezmer song. It's more Gary Neuman in awesomeville. Dig it: The Distance of the Moon.