When I used to listen to pro wrestling, I was more of a fan of what is known as “technical wrestling,” where wrestlers would use intricate holds and sound mat expertise to get the story of their match across. Guys like Bret Hart and “Mr. Perfect” Curt Hennig were two at the top of my list. However, that didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy a good old, down-and-dirty brawl with guys like Terry Funk providing the pain.

That kind of feeling pretty much mirrors itself in my love of music. I love elaborate, meticulously made melodies, which make use of unexpected instrumentation or highly detailed arrangements, but without ever, ever neglecting a good old fashioned shit-kicking exploder. And that’s where Middle Class Rut come into the equation. From the minute All Walks Of Life kicks off, you know you’re in for a scorcher. The song’s bluesy chord-busting rends you like a hacksaw, the searing, face-melting vocals screech like a sandstorm, while the blistering, stormy drumwork bakes whatever you had left into a nice, tidy ash heap. But don’t get me wrong, this is one precise, angular, calculated conflagration, streaking with flawless, relentless execution. So I guess it does have a place in that “elaborate” category. To me, it’s the best of both worlds.

MP3: Middle Class Rut - All Walks Of Life

myspace.com/middleclassrut

Mar - Mother Star Sun
Listening to Mar’s Mother Star Sun is the sonic equivalent of a chilly breeze on a hot summer evening. It just trickles gently around you, swirling a tingle throughout your skin, and makes the atmosphere feel not as challenging. It’s a grower, pacing itself adroitly before finishing in a stellar flourish of soaring strings and swooshing percussion.

Oxford Collapse - Amongst Friends
What about some jangling pop happyness? Huh? Do we not have enough of that? Do we? DO WE? No! The answer is an uppercase “NO!” Do you hear me? You will listen to the oblique musical peppyness of Oxford Collapse’s celebration of friendship, which can be found on The Hann-Byrd EP, which is a lead-in to their double-album due out in August, and you will be thankful that you have listed to such a furtive, pert tune devoid of frills and syrup.

Kaki King - Bone Chaos In The CastleKaki King is one hell of a guitarist. She can pluck and weave and slide her way around a six-string with such dexterity and attention to detail that you wonder why the hell people are still pent up on Stevie Ray and Zakk Wylde. Probably because she’s not as show-offy and more privy to creating engaging musical moods. Anyway, save her a spot on the next Guitar Hero.

MP3: Mar - Mother Star Sun

This here, gentle readers and amicable visitors, is why I listen to new music in the first place. For moments, like this one, where I start up a song I’ve never heard before, give it a single listen, and it instantaneously strikes every chord with sharpshooter precision. It’s gems like The Lord Dog Bird’s The Gift Of Song In The Lion’s Den which remind me just how wonderful and stunning music can be.

Wilderness guitarist Colin McCann put together The Gift Of Song In The Lion’s Den in his own home on four track cassette, which accounts for its heavily analogue, forthright, folk-inspired simplicity. However, the song makes no qualms about its unpolished aura: the guitars start off with a purposeful awkwardness amidst the low buzz of the surrounding equipment, in somewhat of a muted, out of focus membrane, painfully melodious, as if carrying a charge it craves to release. Thankfully, the thud of a bass drum and the crispy jaunt of a tambourine emerge to back it up, as if propping the melody up to ensure it be heard, accompanied by McCann’s elevating, vivid, fervent, Peter Gabriel-esque vocals, wide and welcoming, with a profound earnestness that drips of vulnerability, yet robust enough to feel strong. Or at least, stronger. The result is a song full of hope, determined to cast the weight off itself and pursue a life unburdened.

I swear, we weren’t expecting this one.

MP3: The Lord Dog Bird - The Gift Of Song In The Lion's Den

www.jagjaguwar.com/onesheet.php?cat=JAG118

Rejoice, ye who are fortunate enough to have blundered over these parts, rejoice! For it is time for an outpour of generosity from here at A Limerick Ox aitch-cue, in the form of yet another spine-tingling giveaway!

And what a giveaway I have in store for you kind, wonderful, admirable folks today. Indeed, you have the chance to make up with a ton (and I mean a ton) of bitchin’ From Bubblegum To Sky stuff. There is no other way to describe this as anything else than a “prize package,” making me feel ever so closer to Bob Barker than I ever have been in my entire life.

And what a prize package it is: there’s stuff to download, stuff to wear, stuff to pin, stuff to hang, and stuff to listen to! All this is offered to you through my Internet rest-stop thanks to the folks at Fanatic Promotion and Eenie Meenie Records in honour of the release of From Bubblegum To Sky’s third LP A Soft Kill.

To be literal, the winner of this giveaway will receive:

• A Dropcard to download a copy of A Soft Kill
• An awesome t-shirt featuring artwork from the cover of A Soft Kill
• A A Soft Kill button
• A poster signed by FBTS’s Mario Hernandez (with his hands!)
• CDs of FBTS’s two previous releases: Me And Army And The Two French Boys and Nothing Sadder Than Lonely Queen.

Enticed yet? Can’t wait another moment to know how to enter your chance to win? Okay then!

To enter the contest, all you have to do is send me visuals. An image. A drawing. A photograph. Vector graphics. Whatever you like as long as you use A Soft Kill (or one of the album’s track titles) as your theme. Email your entry to ox@alimerickox.com pronto! And this is no raffle: the winner will be picked by FBTS’s one-man-band Mario Hernandez himself.

Will you send me a drawing of a cloud being stabbed? Will it be a short comic of a Play-Doh man being squished? Will it be a photograph of you holding a piece of paper with the album’s name scribbled on it as you stand next to a dead body (ew!)? Time to get creative, get awesome, and get those prizes! You have till June 29 at 11:59PM EST to do so!

MP3: From Bubblegum To Sky - Guest Relations

www.frombubblegumtosky.com
myspace.com/frombubblegumtosky

You know that tried-and-true (read cliché) expression: you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t? It’s a feeling we’ve all had at some point, where regardless of one’s action or inaction, one end’s up with an equally unenviable situation. I’m willing to bet that feeling, that concept is what motivated the soon-to-be-celebrating ten years of existence Oneida to compose Preteen Weaponry, a highly atmospheric song of disquieting potency, blending their volatile improvisational nature to their poised, proficient instrumentation to create a tense, hypnotic moment.

The song starts off with some desperately frantic drumming, splashing through a cloud of noisy grit, as expectant guitar chords fleetingly timbre a muted melody which attempts to make sense of the surrounding distortion, yet feels eerily drowned out by the frenetic noise. Far-off rumblings the background foreshadow the second part of the song, which enters a barrage of deep, gutteral baritone drones, bitcrunched into a ghastly storm of unnerving turbulence. Then, as if finding shelter, a clear yet fathomless hum grows out of the storm, as guitars reverberate in an empty state of solitude, and drums batter like window shutters in strong wind, providing protection but no comfort.

Like I said: damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

MP3: Oneida - Preteen Weaponry (Edited Version)

www.enemyhogs.com/site
myspace.com/oneidarocks

The Accidental - Dream For Me
Aside from having cover art which I would love to brandish on a T-shirt, The Accidental have a great, bittersweet of a folk tune in Dream For Me; incredibly organic and authentic, this lightly executed but emotionally charged song will sink into your consciousness with its bucolic harmonies and dreamy, restful tones, as wispy as the red-eyed sheet ghost which graces the front of their album.

Looker - Gates Of The Old City
Now for those of us who are looking for a little candy for their ears (because, Heaven knows, we music lovers don’t make it easy on our auditory systems), I propose Looker’s Gates Of The Old City, a sweet and tasty treat of girly powerpop, coated in tangy hookyness and bursting melodious flavour. Jolting guitar riffs blend together with bouncy piano chords charismatic vocals for that special pop-rocks-in-soda feeling without that exploding head urban myth.

Truckasaurus - Super Copter
You know, the only way they could make that new Knight Rider series less obnoxious is if they had KITT go ballistic about gas prices and start fighting oil execs instead of terrorists. Just like if they were to bring Airwolf back, they’d have to use Truckasaurus‘ 8-bit rethinking of the theme entitled Super Copter, lest they bring Jean-Michel Vincent back, the only man I know who would accept to portray a character whose name was “Stringfellow Hawke.” Fippin’ eh.

MP3: The Accidental - Dream For Me

I’ll come right out and tell you that I am a Genesis fan. No, not as in the “first book of the Bible” Genesis, nor the “Project Genesis” which brought Spock back to life in Star Trek III, although I did own a Sega Genesis… no, I’m talking about the band, Genesis, specifically the incarnation fronted by Peter Gabriel in the early 1970s. To this day, Foxtrot and The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway are among my favourite albums, and I will always respect the guys back then for having used “Heracleum mantegazzianum” as a line in one of their songs.

So, of course, like any Gabriel-era Genesis fan, I have a strong dislike for the Collins/Rutherford/Banks era. Yeah, I’m one of those costumes-and-makeup theatrics purists, finding the trio’s ongoing material contrived, uninspired, and safe (except maybe Mama, which sort of shines clearly throughout all that murkiness). Don’t talk to me about how Land Of Confusion is sharp global criticism; there’s more social commentary in the two minute-fifteen second Harold The Barrel than in Land’s interminable 4:45; and it’s much much cheekier, too.

See how worked up I get?

So when I listen to Immigration Reform by Baltimore’s Dennis Patrick Bowen, aka Smart Growth, I can’t help but smirk complacently at how relevant and fun Phil Collins’ voice sounds in this re-hash of Illegal Alien. Bowen, a drummer himself, gives more than enough sonic space to crashing percussions, pounding bass drums, and Collins-signature machine-gun drum pads, thunka-lunking frantically like it’s 1981. There’s more than enough synthwork to go around, from crystalline notes glinting celestially to punchy, snarling chords escalating the groove to searing levels, all accompanied by an animated, pep rally-worthy chorus of “It’s no fun/Being an illegal alien” cheers. I swear, the chorus works on so many levels.

And if you’re privy to Smart Growth’s Immigration Reform (which I am thrilled to have permission to host) and you’d like to hear more of his Genesis-inspired concoctions, you might want to give a listen to his EP, Surrey, which is offered up completely free for your listening, and my post-Gabriel vexation, pleasure.

MP3: Smart Growth - Immigration Reform

myspace.com/smartgrowth

I actually sat in a fast-food restaurant during the course of this past week and saw a man eat two cheeseburgers at once. As in two meat patties, two slices of cheese, two sets of condiments, and two buns, stacked one on top of the other and being chewed into at the same time. It was a frightful sight which I am bound to forget about some day, now that I have used it as a lead-in to the list of my ten favourite songs I wrote about in the past two weeks.

Here they are in order of appearance:

• Dead Leaf Echo - Pale Fire
• Great Bloomers - Catching Up
• Melvins - Nude With Boots
• Jaguar Love - Bats Over The Pacific Ocean
• Ayla Brook - Wake Up Early
• Women - Black Rice
• Perhapst - “Quote”
• Windmill - Tokyo Moon
• Afternoons - Say Yes!
• Podington Bear - Ebullience

Writing a couple of these everyday can be kind of difficult sometimes, especially when inspiration is as lacking as my underwear (um…). So I can’t even imagine putting myself in the position of composing three new songs per week for a period of 52 weeks. And yet, Podington Bear is about to pull it off; with only a few songs left to share over the Internet, the world’s most musical bear will establish a phenomenal artistic feat by keeping his songs far from the mundane, which makes one believe that must have actually eaten his muse to have upkept such creative levels of inspiration all this time.

A song like Ebullience denotes Podington Bear’s high quality watermark; you’d never realise he’s at the end of his creative undertaking with such a strikingly charming, perky, active song. It bleeps, rattles, and clinks as if the bear dove into his sonic toybox and put together a multicolour Lego house complete with wheels, spaceship wings, and oddly placed windows. The tune saunters on almost as if in a tropical panorama, sounds fluttering by like small birds, the keys brushing gently like a light breeze, and its naive vividness warming everything like a generous sunbeam. As playful as it is earnest, Ebullience is a clunky, quirky delight of vivid, frolicsome beauty, eons away from the stark coldness electronic which usually fastens itself to electronic music.

MP3: Podington Bear - Ebullience

www.podingtonbear.com
myspace.com/podingtonbear

Listen, if we were still in some kind of barter system, I’d gladly trade in a goat for a copy of the Afternoons’ first EP. Yes, a goat: a full-blown, robust, tin can eating, milk making goat. Not a chicken, nor a weasel. Yeah, weasels. I’d have weasels. I’d raise weasels on my farm. What, you think a weasel rancher is so hard to imagine? You’d be surprised at how many new release rentals you could get at the video store for a weasel.

But I digress. A goat to enjoy the Afternoons in their first recording glory is what I would offer, and I do this solely based on the strength of their song Say Yes!; it’s a delightful symphonic celebration, an uplifting musical pageant of optimistic whimsy, marching jubilantly in harmonic bliss like a wandering militia performing an ebullient, sunshiny tattoo. It quite literally sweeps you up with its irresistible strokes, calling upon a vast instrumentation working in seamless symmetry to stage its infective melody with vigor. Glittering guitars, brisk drums, and enthusiastic horns share the stage with complicit warmth alongside, church bells, piccolos, and operatic background vocals, with the lyrics delivered in poised, knowing eagerness.

It’s so jubilant, even the goat would be happy to be traded.

MP3: Afternoons - Say Yes!

myspace.com/therealafternoons
www.facebook.com/pages/Afternoons/8047866213