One Day as a Lion

The Tune for Today is:

One Day as a Lion - Ocean View

Live Version:

Blood done been running down streets flood with beats
Pepper spray over cracked concrete
So vicious make a rich mans neck split
Underworld bout to wreck shit bet this
Banks closed stomachs churning
Lines and rows cops blastin out church windows
They heard word of two on a terror list
Hid in the pews just two city terrace kids
One held a piece just for peace of mind
The other was spittin poems blowin minds
On the picket line
Barricades lay cross made with bumpers and burning tires
And you could smell the exhaust
And you could hear the kids screaming don't
Play us, too close
You can have the mic or the heater but you can't hold both

And they were both... 
And they were both... 

Ocean of tears rise, rise a flame to tear them down
Ocean of past crimes now fill our hearts to tear them down

The water main's cut off panic hit the manor of the
Mayor who's soft
Word hit the streets that the cops got off
They shook to rhythm of heaters that burned
Like claps of thunder
You turn to look at vengeance returned that shatter control
After the whole shock of the news that a bomb hit the
Bridge at broadway
Gridlock full stop every exit way from Chavez to main
Downtown was the same
Every corner a flame with lines of people stripped of they clothes
Freeze hold up your ID's their houses burned as they watched
The colonel looked at his clock

And they were all... 
And they were all... 

Oceans of tears rise, rise a flame to tear them down
Ocean of past crimes now fill our hearts to tear them down

Review by Thom Jurek (allmusic)

Here it is...finally. One Day as a Lion are Zack de la Rocha, lead vocalist (and current as of July 2008) for Rage Against the Machine, and Jon Theodore, former drummer with the Mars Volta. De la Rochaand Theodore have been reportedly working on this project since 2006. The end result is a volatile mix of rhythm, noise, and radical poetry. De la Rocha is no stranger to the great political poets; his brand of rapping and freestyling has always been saturated with their influence as well as his own constantly evolving political thought. Many of these writers are cited in the set's acknowledgements -- Jimmy Santiago Baca, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, and Junot Diaz, to name just four. The name of the band comes from a near mythic photograph by the great George Rodriguez published in 1970: "It's better to live one day as a lion, than a thousand years as a lamb." The slogan is a tag centered in a frame on a white wall in Boyle Heights. Knowing this, you might believe you have an idea of what these songs are about, but you'd be wrong; you only think you do. Yes, these five songs, clocking in at just over 20 minutes, are an intense racket of sociopolitical noise. Theodore's drums add the taut, tightly wound pulse of the lion, the phrase, the breath, the heart of the sound, while De la Rocha's keyboards blurt, pulse, and skronk a post-9/11 warning siren throughout. Some nonsense has been made of this entire project being influenced by Led Zeppelin -- that seems to be the thing to write in 2008. Truth is, one track, "Ocean View," touches on Zep's mighty tune "The Ocean" in the melody of its refrain, but its lyrical content is in stark, even violent contrast to the former hard rock heroes as De la Rocha spits atop some mighty organic beats and squalling synths: "...Oceans of tears now rise aflame to tear them down/Oceans of past crimes now fill our hearts to tear them down...." It's poetry, it's political, it's mysterious -- until you sit down and let this killer track knock you flat on your back with its rage, power, and knowledge of reckoning. The rest you are going to have to check out, save to say that all five of these cuts are essential, pure kinetic anger motivated by love for people (to paraphrase Che Guevara). This is a five-cut call to arms. No matter what ultimately happened with One Day as a Lion, we now have this document, perfect in its short sparking length and raucous in its truth. Twenty minutes? How long was the first Sex Pistolsalbum, 30 with some filler? How long was Grandmaster Flash's "The Message"? Eight? There isn't any filler here; it's all the aural ignition of a gasoline bomb going off in your ears.



Tune The Album

Suicidal Tendencies - How Will I Laugh Tomorrow When I Can't Even Smile Today

The Tune for Today is:

Suicidal Tendencies - Trip at the Brain

 

Trippin' (echo)

Ha ha ha ha ha ha...Tripping...

I gotta gotta take a trip, gotta take a trip out of this place
I gotta gotta get away, get away from the human race
I don't know what I'll see; don't even know what I'll find
I don't know what to pack, never been to a trip to the mind

Trip at the brain. Trip at the brain. Trip at the brain
Do you know what I'm saying?
Trip at the brain. Trip at the brain. Trip at the brain
Well I'm going insane

I took a wrong turn and ended up at my heart
It could barely even pump no blood, it was so thrashed and torn apart
Thanked it for working overtime in pain and misery
Then I set back on the trail, headed for my destiny

Trip at the brain. Trip at the brain. Trip at the brain
Do you know what I'm saying?
Trip at the brain. Trip at the brain. Trip at the brain
Well I'm going insane, well, fly with me...Flying free...

Tripping...tripping...
Trip Trip Trip Trip Tripping...Ya ya ya ya you're tripping

I cannot, cannot stop this trip I forgot to pack the brakes
Ran straight into a concrete wall of my mistakes
Ended up in a cemetery of a thousand wasted days
But that's alright with me ‘cos that's where most of my memory lays

Trip at the brain. Trip at the brain. Trip at the brain
Do you know what I'm saying?
Trip at the brain. Trip at the brain. Trip at the brain
Well I'm going insane

Take another take a body take it buddy take it and my mind is gonna, trip it gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta~ fly with me~ flying free~

Gotta get away…Gotta, gotta, gotta get away
I gotta get away, gotta get away… I'm gonna take that trip.
Welcome, 'cause I'm the host with the most, now here a little toast, to take another taste to put you mind out cold, I'll situate your fear, make your knowledge disappear, you can talk all you want, but nothing you've admitted here~ 
It's situating, exasperating, a simple demonstration in experimentation, I slip, flip, flinch trip every little dip, it's not like it's complicated, of course your free to pay, I'm educated for your personal pain, well it's so insane, but won't you keep all the pain, as I slip fly flip, got caught up in another, try to pay another shrink, buy his wife another mink, let me tell what I think think I think I think~ I Gotta, gotta get away gotta get away, gotta get away, I'm just trippin' trippin' trippin' 
Never volatile, wanna sin with me, you gotta get away, they say they're gonna freak, but that between the cheek, gotta trip gotta trip gotta~ 
Gotta make a sound, its a dance mom, gotta take a trip, gotta take a trip, the real trip ain't about gettin' hip, gotta trip tripa tripa tripa tripa ha~ Sins go slam, goin down at the chest, gotta get away gotta get away away~ Gotta trip with no permission, mind evaluation, take your head, add a little crazy, take that trip to the brain, take that trip to the brain everybody gotta get get off, you gotta gotta gotta take the trip to the brain!

Review by Steve Huey (allmusic)

Suicidal Tendencies regrouped successfully for one of its best efforts, How Will I Laugh Tomorrow When I Can't Even Smile Today. The band's thrashy fusion of its hardcore roots with speed metal was fully developed by this point, and Mike Muir's social commentary and self-analysis were as ragingly compelling and by turns amusing as ever. Highlights include "Trip at the Brain," "One Too Many Times," and the title track.

Tune The Album

The NightWatchMan - World Wide Rebel Songs

The Tune for Today is:

The NightWatchMan - Stray Bullets 

"Wooah oh oh
Ayy ee yay
I I I sail away
Wooah oh oh
Ayy ee yay
Slide on down
Wooah oh oh
Ayy ee yay
What is lost
You gave away
Stray bullets rainin' on
Down, down, down
Stray bullets rainin' on down

Me and Danny Lord and Steve
Were fuckin' drunk on New Year's Eve
Singin,' drinkin,' playin' guitars
Layin' 'round
We pulled the shotgun out the shed and
Fired it towards the heavens
Stray bullets rainin' on down

Wooah oh oh
Ayy ee yay
I I I sail away
Wooah oh oh
Ayy ee yay
Slide on down
Wooah oh oh
Ayy ee yay
What is lost
You gave away
Stray bullets rainin' on
Down, down, down
Stray bullets rainin' on down

Back of an Ace uncovered truck
The captain laughed and said, "Good luck"
As we rolled on through
Our first Iraqi town
From the rooftop we got blasted
Danny Lord's spine came unfastened
Stray bullets rainin' on down

Wooah oh oh
Ayy ee yay
I I I sail away
Wooah oh oh
Ayy ee yay
Slide on down
Wooah oh oh
Ayy ee yay
What was is lost
You gave away
Stray bullets rainin' on
Down, down, down
Stray bullets rainin' on down

Fifteen months lost in Iraq
We got stop-lossed, they sent us back
Why the fuck we're even here I'll never know
Me and Steve, we went out walkin'
A few of us have started talkin'
And now we've got a mission of our own

Wooah oh oh
Ayy ee yay
I I I sail away
Wooah oh oh
Ayy ee yay
Slide on down
Wooah oh oh
Ayy ee yay
What was is lost
You gave away
Stray bullets rainin' on
Down, down, down
Stray bullets rainin' on down

'Cuz now were comin' for the captain
To reap the seeds he's sewn
Everybody hit the deck
'Cuz his tent's about to blow
Tell the general when we find him
He'll be the next to go
We're coming for the captain
And then we're going home

Wooah oh oh
Ayy ee yay
I I I sail away
Wooah oh oh
Ayy ee yay
Slide on down
Wooah oh oh
Ayy ee yay
What was is lost
You gave away
Stray bullets rainin' on
Down, down, down
Stray bullets rainin' on down."

The Nightwatchman (Tom Morello) - Vocals, Guitar, Mandolin, Harmonica.
Carl Restivo - Guitar, Keyboards, Backing Vocals.
Chris Joyner - Keyboards.
Jonny Polonsky - Toy Piano.
Eric Gardner - Drums, Percussion.
Dave Gibbs - Backing Vocals.
Anne Preven - Backing Vocals.

When describing World Wide Rebel Songs, Morello stated, "Troubled times call out for troubled songs. World Wide Rebel Songs is an album of rousing hopelessness and this time The Nightwatchman has brought along his electric guitar to tip the scales. I wanted to capture a vibe midway between Johnny Cash and Che Guevera, murder ballads and Molotov anthems."

Review by Thom Jurek (allmusic)

Tom Morello's doppelganger the Nighwatchman issues World Wide Rebel Songs hot on the heels of his benefit EP Union Town. Rather than play solo as on previous offerings, he fronts a rock quintet. This is marching music. If you don't like your music political, where songs address class, race, and rage that comes from hopelessness, this isn't for you. That said, personal responsibility and accountability are paramount in Morello's universe. The album's first single, "Save the Hammer for the Man," a midtempo, anthemic, electric/acoustic number co-written with Ben Harper (who guests on it), is an admonition to those who've decided enough is enough, to focus their radical actions at those truly responsible. The music, layered with popping martial drums, rock-solid basslines, beautifully balanced acoustic and electric guitars, match the plain-spoken yet poetic forcefulness of Morello's language. The opening "Black Spartacus Heart Attack Machine," in its stop-and-start, half-chanted, half-sung lyric, reminds listeners that history is made by people, not power brokers. (And historical analysis reveals this to be largely true.)Morello's view is international -- check the songs "The Dogs of Tijuana" and the brooding "Facing Mount Kenya"; they assert that class war is being asserted globally -- and needs to be fought with that in mind. This band rocks on the furious "It Begins Tonight." "Speak and Make Lightning" is a stomping two-step; its "love covers all sins" conclusion may be surprising, but love is exposed as a powerful motivating factor throughout the album and seems to be inspired not only by the logic of his heart, but by an important historical figure with the same view -- Guevara: “Let me say at the risk of seeming ridiculous that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.”) Narrative songs are balanced by anthems throughout, with the haunting "The Whirlwind" and country-punk of "Stray Bulletts" illuminated by the crackling title track, and the scorching electric "Union Town" close the disc. As a songwriter, Morello's grown exponentially: he's tighter and he gets his points across without cynicism or naivete. He extends the topical (political) folk song tradition into the 21st century musically and lyrically. His arrangements and production -- large backing choruses, only-what's-necessary instrumentation, and clean, live-sounding sonics -- allow his songs to breathe fire into the questions, illuminating them clearly. World Wide Rebel Songs, is, without question, a welcome call to arms.

Tune The Album:

The Chosen Tune Week

   

The Chosen Tune Week
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Atoms for Peace - Amok	Morphine - Super Sex	The Joy Formidable - Maw Maw Song	Parquet Courts - Master of My Craft	Beck - Novacane

Monday: Atoms for Peace - Default 

Tuesday: Morphine - Super Sex

Wednesday: The Joy Formidable - Maw Maw Song

Thursday: Parquet Courts - Master of My Craft 

Friday: Beck - Novacane

Beck - Odelay

The Tune for Today is:

Beck - Novacane

Keep on talking like a novacane hurricane
Low static on the poor man's short-wave
Stampede's got to dismantle
Code-red: what's your handle
Mission incredible undercover convoy
Full-tilt chromosome cowboy
X-ray search and destroy
Smoke stack black top novacane boy
Got so low your mom won't drum
Getting late with the suicide beat
Test-tube, still-born and dazed
Chump scum plays in the razor's haze
Got the momentum radioactive
Lowdown!
Circumcised for the operation
Don't expect some generation
Cyanide ride down the turnpike
Hundred hours on the miracle mic
Grinding the gears eighteen wheels
Rigs and robots riding on their heels
Fine tune robot making a sand box(?)
Heats and infernos burning like drano(?)
Down the horizon purple gasses
Semi-trucks hauling them asses
Novacane, hit the road expressway
Explode!
Novacane! Novacane!

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine (allmusic)

Unlike Stereopathetic Soul Manure and One Foot in the Grave, the indie albums that followed his debutMellow Gold by a mere matter of months, Odelay was a full-fledged, full-bodied album, released on a major label in the summer of 1996 and bearing an intricate, meticulous production by the Dust Brothersin their first gig since the Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique. Odelay shared a similar collage structure to that 1989 masterpiece, relying on a blend of found sounds and samples, but instead of lending the album its primary colors, the Dust Brothers provided the accents, highlighting Beck's ever-changing sounds, tying together his stylistic shifts, making the leaps from the dirge-blues of "Jack-Ass" to the hazy party rock of "Where's It's At" seem not so great. Like Mellow Gold, Odelay winds up touching on a number of disparate strands -- folk and country, grungy garage rock, stiff-boned electro, louche exotica, old-school rap, touches of noise rock -- but there's no break-neck snap between sensibilities, everything flows smoothly, the dense sounds suggesting that the songs are a bit more complicated than they actually are. Most of the songs here betray Beck's roots as an anti-folk singer -- he reworks blues structures ("Devil's Haircut"), country ("Lord Only Knows," "Sissyneck"), soul ("Hotwax"), folk ("Ramshackle") and rap ("High 5 [Rock the Catskills]," "Where It's At") -- but each track twists conventions, either in their construction or presentation, giving this a vibrant, electric pulse, surprising in its form and attack. Like a mosaic, all the details add up to a picture greater than its parts, so while some of Beck's best songs are here, Odelay is best appreciated as a recorded whole, with each layered sample enhancing the allusion that came before.

Tune the Album

The Chosen Tune Week
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Atoms for Peace - Amok	Morphine - Super Sex	The Joy Formidable - Maw Maw Song	Parquet Courts - Master of My Craft	Beck - Novacane

Parquet Courts - Light Up Gold

The Tune for Today is:

Parquet Courts - Master of My Craft 

I got a gold medal record time, gold record, diamond mine,
Name in print, tongue, t-shirts and minds.
Thread count - high
Commissions - high
Hourly rates - high
A minute of your time?
Forget about it.

I didn't come here to dream or teach the world things,
Define paradigms, or curate no livin' days,
With high thread counts and staircases high.
Hourly rates - high
A minute of your time?
Forget about it.

Thread count - high
Commissions - high
Hourly rates - high
A minute of your time?
Forget about it.

People die I don't care, you should see the wall of ambivalence I'm building
I got no love for the living.
Thread count - high
Commissions - high
Hourly rates - high
A minute of your time?
Forget about it.

Death to all false profits around here we praise a dollar you f*ckin' hippie
Wanna walk around in my shoes and then tell me how it feels
Thread count - high
Commissions - high
Hourly rates - high
A minute of your time?
Forget about it.

From the hands of my mother, said I'm master of my craft

Thread count - high
Commissions - high
Hourly rates - high
A minute of your time?
Ya know Socrates died in the f*ckin' gutter!

Review by Fred Thomas (allmusic)

Passionate slackers Parquet Courts are from the same crew of Texas-to-Brooklyn transplants responsible for the Zappa-esque genre-bending conceptual weirdness of Fergus & Geronimo as well as the more straightforward basement pop-punk of Teenage Cool Kids. Songwriter Andrew Savage is clearly a prolific and multifaceted character, but with Parquet Courts, he taps into a focus and sense of mood cultivation missing in some of his other projects. Savage and fellow songwriter Austin Brown present a series of observational freeze-frames on debut album Light Up Gold, zeroing in on banal scenes, everyday events, and listless pondering during drifting times. Musically, Parquet Courts draw on some influences not commonly paired, but to great effect. Motoric indie rockers like "Borrowed Thyme" and "Stoned & Starving" call to mind the wandering rock of the Feelies or the inward-looking side of the first phase ofthe Modern Lovers. Contemporaries like Tyvek can be heard on the shouty poetry of tracks like "Donuts Only" and "Yonder Is Closer to the Heart," while the shadow of '90s staple artists like Pavement andSonic Youth colors the entire album. All these disparate influences don't show up in a way that feels jarring or derivative, which is perhaps the great strength of Light Up Gold. The album manages to sound like it's learning from its influences rather than stealing directly. Much like Pavement's "Two States" managed to blatantly ape the Fall and somehow still get a pass on its own merits, "Careers in Combat" apes Pavement aping the Fall in the most original way possible, and sounds great in the process. The patchwork of reference points becomes more about the way the band wears them than anything, andParquet Courts' approach to both melody and always-mutating guitar tones silently elevates them from being mere reflections of their record collections. While still early into the group's existence, the bandmembers dubbed their sound "Americana punk," possibly referring to the open landscapes of their Texan beginnings clashing with their present urban surroundings and the unique sonic results of that juxtaposition. Much more on the mark is a line from an early bio comparing the feel of the band to elements of Sonic Youth, Bob Dylan, and other acts not originally from the big city, but ultimately just as important a part of its musical landscape. Light Up Gold captures some of the excitement and perspective on city life that only transplants could feel, and filters it through a haze of laid-back '90s alt-rock influence. The album is sometimes languid, often jittery and beaming, but mostly an almost subconsciously storytelling collection of moments that would be boring and forgettable if they weren't captured in songs so accidentally perfect.

Tune The Album:

The Chosen Tune Week
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Atoms for Peace - Amok	Morphine - Super Sex	The Joy Formidable - Maw Maw Song	Parquet Courts - Master of My Craft	Beck - Novacane