As I was going through a drive deleting old files, I stumbled upon this little gem of Internet goodness: Punk-o-matic. It’s a flash game with pre-recorded punk riffs and beats that you can arrange into your own punk song. It definitely shows off Marco Arsenault’s talent as both a punk artist and Flash programmer. You can also save your creations or share them as a code.

I played with this a lot around early 2004 and actually finished a song. Just press the “Load” button and copy/paste this code into the space:

--------9-681--81--81--81---8868869---878786-80---1-884-78769---
-------------------------7-7-7-7-2---2---2---2---2---2-8---8---2
---0---2-8-c----6c------------------------8-a---a-----0---1---3-
4-5-6-88-88-a---01023-5-7-7-7-6-a----9a------------------------

If you have any Punk-o-matic codes feel free to post them in the comments. Alternatively you can tell me how much I suck.

It’s a bit sad going to clubs and bars in Puerto Rico. The DJ’s play the exact same set of Spanish-rock songs that everybody knows and everybody expects. And when there is a band playing, guess which songs they cover? … Give up? The exact same set of Spanish-rock songs mixed in with Bon Jovi.

Radio stations aren’t better. Although the FM band in the island is stuffed full, most of the stations have a Top 40 format. We only have one decent/good local rock station. And the absolute best station on the planet is in St. Thomas, so we can only enjoy if we can have the reception.

I think I would’ve ended my life by now if it wasn’t for Al Gore and his miraculous Internet apparatus.

As I keep trekking through the Web 2.0 seas, new sites for discovering music keep popping up. Each uses their own methods to recommend and play songs in their entirety that you may like. As they feed from what you tell them, they evolve and accommodate to your tastes. Eventually, you can listen to a stream of music that you love, but have never heard before. Unreal, isn’t it?

A big chunk of the music I enjoy is by independent artist that have benefited greatly from these services. Without labels and their exorbitant fees, their music is out there, being listened-too and purchased. And isn’t that the way it should be? Why should artists work hard so record executives can afford mansions, yachts, jets and hourly hand-jobs?

Here’s a collection of some of the stuff I’m interested in:

The old-school way: SHOUTcast
They’ll always be a place for streaming radio. Nullsoft’s SHOUTcast software has enabled just about anybody with the inclination to setup their very own music station. There are thousands upon thousands of them out there organized by genres. It’s also build into software you may already be using, like iTunes and the beloved XBMC. SHOUTcast is also supported by many other clients, like Nullsoft’s own Winamp, VLC media player, XMMS and Zinf.

The genomic way: Pandora
I’ve been using this awesome free service for about a year and a half. It’s unique in that they tag music with very informed descriptions by The Music Genome Project. As you tell it what songs you like or dislike from what it plays you, Pandora uses the descriptions to adapt to your tastes, and constantly serve you great music.

The versatile way: Slacker
“Slacker is a new kind of music company. We deliver personal radio that is customized for every listener”. It’s like SHOUTcast and Pandora combined. Sort of: The artist stations are only based on “similar artist” profiles and it doesn’t learn the way Pandora does. It also has streaming stations by genre, but unlike SHOUTcast the playlists are being generated on the fly just for you. Songs are skipable a limited amount of times thanks to the RIAA.

The playlist way: Finetune
Finetune streams tracks from the user’s favorite artists, and lets the user create and share playlists online. Playlists are 45 tracks long. But there are some RIAA induced limitations: You can only include 3 songs from the same artist in any given playlist and songs can only be played one time. I only used this once, but I was very impressed with the recommendations.

The social way: Last.fm
Last.fm is a music-based social networking site. I have it setup with iTunes and XBMC. All the music I listen on these gets listed on my Last.fm profile. The site can then give me recommendations based on what it has learned from other profiles. It also matches me with people that listen to similar music.

The less-free way: Amie Street
Amie Street is an online music store and social network service. Artists upload tracks onto the site, which allows users to purchase them at a price that varies according to demand. The price for all tracks starts at zero when a song is uploaded onto the site. It then rises according to the increased demand. The maximum price a song can reach is 98¢. Website users earn credits by recommending (”REC”) songs to their friends. If the REC leads to users purchasing it, the price of the song will increase. The user will earn credit based on the increase in the price of the song after making the REC. Artists keep 70% of the proceeds after $5 in sales for each song. - Are you paying attention? This is the future, people.

The patient way: SXSW
I’ve first heard about some of my favorite artist (whether directly or indirectly) thanks to the South by Southwest music festival. Every year over a thousand bands go to Austin, TX to play at dozens of venues. The best thing about the festival (for someone that has never been to Austin) is that the SXSW site offers a free musical sampler. Before the start date they release a Bittorrent file with over 700 songs. All mp3’s. All DRM-free. I call it “the patient way” because it’s a tedious process to sort through 700+ songs to keep the ones you like. For the 2006 set it took me over six months. This year I sorted it in about two: iTunes and a Sansa are a big help. I kept almost 250 songs for 2006 and little over 190 for 2007. That’s a lot of free music.

Also, since I’ve discovered quite a few bands through blogs, maybe I should just set your ass up some phat tracks:

The Birthday Massacre - Video Kid
Boss Martians - Power Of Doubt
The Catch - Empty Your Pockets
End Of Fashion - O Yeah
Ladytron - Destroy Everything You Touch
Morningwood - Nth Degree
Page France - Junkyard
Sarah Hepburn - Hey Ok
Sia - Breathe Me
The Twenty Twos - She Does
Bishop Allen - Click Click Click
Eilen Jewell - Back To Dallas
K’NAAN - If Rap Gets Jealous
Loney Dear - I Am John
The Mooney Suzuki - 99%
Mute Math - Typical
Simple Kid - Seratonin
Sparkle Motion - Try
This Will Destroy You - I Believe In Your Victory
Voxtrot - Trouble

All these are provided through the SXSW site. Enjoy.

My mother’s entire television viewing experience is divided between Television Española Internacional and the Travel Channel. My mother doesn’t understand much English. The Travel Channel is mostly visuals and worthless narration, and TVE is, of course, in Spanish.

Today they played a show that does a countdown of old news, whether they’re from last year or from 50 years ago. I was working on a computer when one segment caught my attention. It was a very brief piece from 1983 on an all-girl punk band from Bilbao. The segment explained how the broadcast of the band’s first music video caused a nationwide uproar.

I had to look this up.

Las Vulpess first formed in 1980. The name vulpess is Latin for foxes, which also means sluts in Spanish. About 10 girls came and went, until the band’s final lineup in 1982:

They rehearsed daily but still had a long way to go. Even though they had plenty of material by 1983, recording a punk album was difficult then. Studios didn’t know how to record guitar distortion properly, or that kind of singing.

Still, they managed to record a single: A 7″ record featuring the songs “Me gusta ser una zorra” (I Like Being a Fox) and “Inkisición” (Inquisition). “Me gusta ser una zorra” is composed of original lyrics over the band’s rendition of Iggy Pop’s “I Wanna Be Your Dog”.

The girls caught the attention of Carlos Tena, who produced a Saturday-morning TV show called “Caja de Ritmos” (Box of Rhythms). The show featured music videos by up-and-coming talent. Tena invited Las Vulpess to make a video for “Me gusta ser una zorra” and broadcasted it on March 16, 1983.

The shit hit the fan on May 1st when ABC, a conservative newspaper, published an article with the song’s lyrics. Here’s my translation of a few verses:

“I’d rather masturbate alone in my bed, than sleep with someone that talks to me about tomorrow. I’d rather fuck with executives, that talk crap and then forget you”.

That doesn’t go over well on Saturday mornings.

It was election year and conservatives milked it all the way. Las Vulpess took a lot of flak and just stopped playing, with the exception of a venue’s benefit event 2 years later. They reunited on 2003, which was the 10 year anniversary of Lupe’s death. Their single was re-released this year.

Here’s the infamous video. This also provides further proof that YouTube will contain every single piece of video on Earth by year’s end.

Wikipedia (Spanish)
POPes80 (Spanish)
Interview with Loles Vazquez (English translation)

Some selections from videos.antville.org and videoteque.org.

30 Seconds To Mars: “The Kill” (11.53 MB)

Remake of “The Shining”, directed by Jared Leto, starring Jared Leto, with music performed by Jared Leto. Hmmm. You know, Randal from “Clerks” had a story about his cousin…

Sam Roberts: “Bridge To Nowhere” (35.31 MB)

I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Sam Roberts. Who cares? This is art.

Broken Social Scene: “Almost Crimes” (28.88 MB)

Broken Social Scene and Emily Haynes shake their asses, iPod style.

Broken Social Scene: “Fired Eyed Boy” (80.19 MB)

Funny video. Seems inspired by Wes Anderson movies.

Balun: “Cuidado Al Caminar” (YouTube)

Great video from one of my favorite local bands.

Pixies: “Monkey Gone To Heaven” - Live on Letterman (33.81 MB)

Christ. Kim Deal is still hot.

Snow Patrol: “Hands Open” (17.23 MB)

Brilliant song. Can’t say the same about this video, but it’s still worth it.

John Cena & The Chain Gang: “Bad, Bad Man” (32.46 MB)

Rapping wrestler makes “The A-Team” parody… and it’s actually good.

Guitar Hero is almost the perfect game. Almost. Guitar Hero II should get closer to flawlessness because it’ll include a bunch of the things I wanted on the first:

All except one: An Xbox or PC version that would let me import and edit new tracks, and share them with a community. The thing is, with copyright laws as they are, sharing imported tracks would be an issue. And so I don’t expect much in this area from RedOctane.

But then there’s always the online programming community. You gotta love ‘em.

Some schmuck from Ottawa has been developing FREETAR HERO. It’s a two-part project. The first consists of a Windows XP track editor that let’s you input the guitar-controller key presses into a selected song. The second will be the actual PC game.

A public beta of the editor will be released soon, but you can see a video of it in action at the site.