I’ve already written about the SNL Digital Short Iran So Far, but there’s one last thing to say - aside from the fact that they got Adam Levine to be on it, the song becomes much cooler once you realize that they sampled Aphex Twin’s Avril 14th.

Radiohead is going to be offering their next album online, since they don’t have any label contract. The name of the new album is In Rainbows, and fans will be able to pay what they think it’s worth. Thank god another major artist is sticking it to the record labels, and thank god it’s not Prince this time. You can preorder it here.

I went to CollegeFest last week and I got hooked on Tim Blane. He was on one of the stages playing the song Tennessee and I ended up buying his CD. It’s very hard not to compare him to John Mayer. The style and the chords he uses are very similar. Tennessee’s lyrical content is very reminiscent of Neon, both songs are about “a crazy girl.” Nevertheless, the song is REALLY good, and I bet you’ll be hearing it on the radio in about a year. Fortunately for you, Tim Blane has put up the mp3 here.

I stumbled upon Kanye West’s Wikipedia page and read some interesting information - he did a song with Teriyaki Boyz. In case you don’t know who those guys are, it’s a group formed by Ilmari and Ryo-Z from Rip Slyme, VERBAL from m-flo, and WISE. Here’s the interesting bit of information, their DJ, Nigo, is the founder of A Bathing Ape. I was wondering how they got Pharell on one of their tracks.

The new hawtness is Feist’s 1 2 3 4, which is featured on the latest iPod commercial. I’m glad that she got the commercial and hopefully this will give her some mainstream recognition. All of her music is great and I would recommend picking up her previous albums.

The latest single from YUI is really good. She’s one of my favorite artists now. How hot is it that a girl who writes her own songs can also rock out? By the way, if you’ve wondered why there’s so much Japanese music on here, I don’t know what to tell you, I’m just addicted because it’s very accessible on the interweb. Some people have problems listening to music in other languages - I don’t since I grew up listening to American stuff without being able to understand it, so this is familiar territory.

Iran So Far is one of the funniest SNL Digital Shorts. I tried my best to put down the lyrics, but I couldn’t understand some parts. If you have any corrections please let me know in the comments.

^ NBC removed the video from YouTube for some reason. This is someone elses.

Iran So Far Lyrics

They say true love comes only once in a lifetime
and even though we’re from opposite ends of the earth,
my heart tells me you’re the one for me.
Mahmoud

I remember when it started, saw you in the news
you were hating gays and I was eating food
I was feeling you, and even though I disagreed with almost everything you said
you aint wrong to me, so strong to me, you belong to me
Like a very hairy Jake Gyllenhaal and me
Mahmoud make my heart beating out of my chest
my mind says no but my body says yes
Nuclear threat, the only threat I see,
is the threat of you not coming home to me.
Our love for each other’s like when atoms collide
Can’t express how I feel
And yo Adam let’s rhyme

And Iran, Iran so far away
is your home, but in my heart you’ll stay

He ran, for the president of Iran
we ran together to a tropical island
my man, Mahmoud is known for rilin’
smiling, if he can still do it then I can
they call you weasel, they say your methods are medieval
you can blame the Jews I can be your Jim Caviezel

S&M, nestlin’ when we’re wrestlin’
You can be the port that I put my vessel in
So I try to mute the tv but you can still see me
with your sleepy brown eyes, white pecan thighs
And your hairy butt…
Yeah.

And Iran, Iran so far away
come home, and in my arms you’ll stay
Used to look at the stars and dream
round the world the same stars we’ve seen
And a twinkle in your eyes Mahmoud.

Talk smooth to me, without a tie
your pants high waisted damn so fly.
We can take a trip to the animal zoo
and laugh at all the funny things that animals do
Like Eugene you got me strait trippin’ boo
hope you look at my eyes and say I’m trippin’ too
you say Iran don’t have the bomb but they already do
you should know by now, it’s you.

You crazy for this one Mahmoud
you can deny the holocaust all you want
but you can’t deny that there’s something between us
I know you say there’s no gays in Iran
but you’re in New York baby
so time to stop hiding,
and start living

I’m going to start doing my music writing on Mondays. Hopefully this will encourage me to write more and will give me some sort of structure, cause this site is all over the place.

On the video list you’ll see stuff from Britney Spears and Lil’ Mama. You may think this is lame but please bear with me, there are totally non-sucky things to be said about them. But first, Foo Fighters… the new rock is out! Rock has been stagnating for quite a while now and I don’t tend to listen much nowadays, but thankfully there are still some bands like the foos that bring be back to the genre once in a while. The new CD, Echoes, Silence Patience & Grace, came out last Friday, and the new single is “Pretender”. I’ve been listening to it over and over for the last week. They brought in Gil Norton, who produced The Colour and the Shape, and Pat Smear will be touring with them. They’re still innovating - the awesome Kaki King plays on the track The Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners. They still sound like the Foo Fighters, but with a more mature sound.

Matchbox-20 has a new single out, “How Far We’ve Come”, and it’s surprisingly good. I mean, this is the first Matchbox 20 song that I don’t hate. Airborne porkers have invaded an artic hell. I mean, seriously, where the hell did it come from?

Oh apparently Stars by Hum is the new hawtness. Cadillac has been using it in their latest ad campaign and I heard it play several times on VH1. Nevermind that this song was released more than 12 years ago. I was a huge fan back then but they had very little commercial success - mostly because their music can be weird.

Forgetting about the fact that Britney Spears is LAME, I’ll say that I actually like the new single, Gimme More. I actually like some of her other songs too, and that’s because they’re written by people with talent, even if she doesn’t have any. Try to listen to some of her songs in other contexts, without shame, and you’ll find out that they’re not that bad. For example, check out the great cover of Baby One More Time by Marty Casey. All of a sudden the song has this great dark quality that was hidden in bubble-gumness. In this case, imagine that Gimme More being performed by Maroon 5 (which is not that bad of a stretch), and all of a sudden it’s not that bad.

The last note is on the Lip Gloss single by Lil’ Mama. Again, you might think this is LAME, and it’s probably one of the most annoying singles of the year. However, there’s something very remarkable about this song - it’s the first hit song to have ABSOLUTELY NO MELODY. I recognize that this is hip hop and lyrics have no melody, but this doesn’t even have a hook. It’s not anywhere near the kind of music that I would listen to, but I recognize that musical taste is subjective, and in that spirit I have to recognize that this is a pretty innovative song, even if it makes me want to jump off a bridge.

Californication is a new series on Showtime and I quickly got addicted to it, it’s so messed up. It should do fine as an Entourage replacement now that the season is over. I really like the theme, it was composed by Tree Adams. He’s done a lot of other great music by the way.

I couldn’t find the mp3 anywhere through Google, but it turns out that it’s on the composer’s website. Go to this link: http://www.treeadams.com/television.htm and click on play music.

Now, I’m not going to post the mp3, but I’m going to show you how to get it. The music player is in flash… people often publish such players because they want you to hear the music without being able to get the MP3. Luckily smart people can get around that, it’s all a matter of finding out what data flash is requesting.

1. Install the livehttpheaders extension for firefox here: http://livehttpheaders.mozdev.org/
2. Once your browser has restarted, go to http://www.treeadams.com/television.htm and open the “Play Music” tab
3. Click on Tools>Live HTTP Headers
4. Click on the Generator tab, and check the box next to “request”
5. On the music player, click on the Californication theme
6. You should see the mp3 show up immediately on the Live HTTP Headers window. You might have to look through the list, but the file extension is .mp3
7. Navigate to the mp3 location and hit File>Save As. You have your mp3.

What the liveHTTPHeaders extension does is show you the browser’s http requests. I use it a lot in web development work to make sure that Flash is requesting data correctly. This tip will always be handy when you come across a site that obscures media through flash. Now, for anyone who’s thinking about making a music player and wants a little security, just stick the audio inside a swf file. No one wants those.