Q: Would you please stop, children, asking me what's that sound?

A: In commemoration of the one million billionth person to land on The Answer May Surprise You after having Googled some variation on "stop children what's that sound," I've decided to try and answer whatever the question is they're meaning to ask.

Q: Who sang the song "Stop, Now, What's That Sound"?

A: There is no such song. The song you're thinking of is called "For What It's Worth."

Q: Okay, fine, whatever, who sang the song "For What It's Worth"?

A: Buffalo Springfield.

Q: Wait, isn't that the lady who the only boy who could ever reach her was the son of a preacher man?

A: No, you're thinking of Mary Isabel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien, a.k.a. Dusty Springfield, "Britain's greatest pop diva." Buffalo Springfield is the legendary American folk-rock supergroup, comprising Stephen Stills, Neil Young, Richie Furay, Bruce Palmer and Dewey Martin.

Their formation is "the stuff of legend," and involves the fact that Neil Young used to drive a hearse (in fact, hearse-related events seem to have prompted most of his early life decisions).

Q: Who wrote "Stop, Children, What's That Sound"?

A: "For What It's Worth," and Stephen Stills.

In its write-up on the song, AMG calls "For What It's Worth" "one of the most representative sounds of the 60s -- even by sheer fact of just the first guitar note and half a dozen drum beats."

That familiar intro has been featured in something like four hundred thousand films and TV shows (including Forrest Gump and The Wonder Years), and was sampled by Public Enemy in 1998's "He Got Game."

Q: What is the song about?

A: The famous Sunset Strip curfew riots of December, 1966. Granted, I have no idea what the curfew riots actually were, because no one has written a Wikipedia entry for them yet. But presumably they involved self-righteous, gun-toting LAPD officers vs a bunch of stoned teenagers, one of whom could have been Stephen Stills, possibly protesting the escalatating Vietnam War.

In short, there was something happening there, but what it was, I'm not exactly clear.

For what it's worth, here are the rest of the lyrics to "For What It's Worth."

Q: Can I download the song from you?

A: No, that would be illegal.

Q: Pleeeeeeease? What if I make out with you?

A: Well. Okay, fine. But you also have to promise to buy the album from which the track was taken, Buffalo Springfield's eponymous debut, on which "For What It's Worth" is the opening track.

Buffalo Springfield - For What It's Worth
Buffalo Springfield, 1967

Q: Thanks! But can I just buy Retrospective: The Best of Buffalo Springfield? I'm the sort of person who only buys greatest hits albums.

A: Sure. But I wish I had known that about you before we made out.

Q: Jesus, why do you have to be such an elitist dick about everything?

A: Because it helps to combat my underlying self-loathing.

Q: Oh right. Hey, can I leave now?

A: No, you should check out my homepage! Or look at all the other mp3s I've made available for sampling!

Q: Wow, okay, that sounds AMAZING now that you mention it. Should I also click on all of your ads?

A: I can't recommend that explicitly, given the terms of Google AdSense. But if you see something you like, go for it!!!!! Also, feel free to buy a shitload of California wine.

Q: Are you saying that for the 15% referral bonus, or are you trying to get me drunk so we can make out again?

A: A little of column A, a little of column B.

Q: Wanna hear some new music?

A: If you happen to be stumbling upon this blog for the first time (probably because you just googled Alice the Snorg Tees model, you pervert), and you want to catch up on some of the new music the kids are listening to, check out stop children what's that sound, a compilation of my mp3 posts. And do it now, because tomorrow morning, I'm removing all the old songs to make room for new ones.

(Also, I'm going to be renaming that tag "mp3," because apparently the point of tagging is so people can find you on Technorati, rather than to confuse people googling old song lyrics.)

Q: Hey there, Chauncey, why the long face?

A: You just need an adrenaline shot of indie pop to turn that frown upside-down! Into steely lipped ennui. This should do the trick.

Malcolm Middleton (of Arab Strap) - "We're All Going to Die"
A Brighter Beat, 2007

...i.e., life is very difficult, so we might as well get dancin'.

Q: Has TV on the Radio become the voice of our generation?

A: Uh, I don't know. Ask Cokemachineglow.

But first, check out this video for TV on the Radio's "I Was a Lover," and tell me what you think...

Q: Why is Lamb Chop rolling in her grave?

A: Because some Internet nerds have come up with a totally superior variation on the song that doesn't end.

It's got a beat, and you can dance to it! Or you can very closely approximate the area of a circle to it, anyway.

Nerdiest of all, though, is that the song seems to have been composed specifically according to the conventions of math rock.

Or at least, I think it fits that definition: "complex, atypical rhythmic structures, stop/start dynamics and angular, dissonant riffs." I actually have no idea what all those fancy music-larnin' words mean, so I'll defer to my commenters.

---

Just for the sake of completeness, here's Lamb Chop's song that never ends.



Later this century, that video will be included among the body of evidence the robots use to justify the human genocide. It will be a unanimous decision.

Q: How sweet is the new Susanna & the Magical Orchestra?

Clockwise from bottom left: Susanna, Magical Orchestra.

A: Totally sweet. And if you were hoping I might be able to define sweetness as it translates to American dollars, the only thing you need to know is that it is a level of sweet that far surpasses $1.79.

See, because $1.79 is all it will cost you to purchase a digital copy of Susanna & the Magical Orchestra's Melody Mountain in its entirety -- legally. It's an offer you can't refuse.

Now, some of you might be asking who the hell Susanna & the Magical Orchestra are. Good question, and I would love to answer it myself, except I just realized the Cavs game is on. So here's a quick round-up of resources (aside from the free AC/DC cover previously provided):

• Susanna & the Magical Orchestra are "actually the Norwegian duo of singer Susanna Wallumrød and keyboardist Morten Qvenild." [All Music Guide]
• Melody Mountain is the duo's second album, featuring heavily stripped down covers of KISS, Joy Division and Leonard Cohen, among others.
• AMG gives it four stars; Pitchfork Media calls it "expansive restraint that, surprisingly enough, makes for good driving music"; CokeMachineGlow recommends it, despite the "limitations" of its concept.
  
• Three more of the band's songs, including their cover of Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence," can be previewed on their MySpace page.
• And if that's not enough to win you over, here's the video for the Magical Orchestra's eerie take on "Love Will Tear Us Apart Again."
  

As to why the album costs less than $2 online -- it's a long story that concerns international law, and I have things to do and LeBrons to root for. Anyway, NPR has assured me it's legal. More on this later.

Q: Why can't I download those frickin' Wilco songs?

A: Because eSnips institutes a maximum daily bandwidth limit they forgot to tell me about. I guess you get what you pay for.

I'll try to figure out a workaround before Monday. In the meantime, if you notice any of the mp3 links on this blog are dead, it just means I'm shifting resources. Try again later.

UPDATE: Here, in the meantime, check out the Wilco-influenced twang of Ours to Destroy. I don't know anything about this band -- other than that their PR people bid a good amount of money on the keyword "Wilco" -- but the song "Skipping Rope of Daisies," which I just streamed off their site, is entirely decent.

Q: Have you heard the new Wilco album?

Wilco: Swathes itself entirely in dulcet earth tones.

A: Probably not, since it doesn't exist yet. Thanks, though, to the keen detective skills of music blogger Jesse Jarnow, fans can get a pseudo-preview of Wilco's forthcoming disc via a series of live tracks culled from around the Internets.

Jesse's homespun compilation recently received some link love from Pitchfork and Stereogum -- which tapped out his music sharing bandwidth. Since T.A.M.S.Y. has more public storage space than we know what to do with, I offered to host the tunes for him (and he was kind enough to repay me with some link love of his own).

Here's the full collection:

[UPDATE: Why can't I download those frickin' Wilco songs?]

1. Let's Not Get Carried Away (24 November, Auditorium Theatre)
2. Side With the Seeds (25 November, Auditorium Theatre)
3. What Light (24 November, Auditorium Theatre)
4. Shake It Off (24 November, Auditorium Theatre)
5. Impossible Germany (24 November, Auditorium Theatre)
6. On and On and On (22 September 2005, Cain's Ballroom)
7. Lullaby For Rafter and Beams (Tweedy solo, 27 October, Foellinger Auditorium)
8. Patient With Me (Tweedy solo, 27 October, Foellinger Auditorium)
9. Walken (24 November, Auditorium Theatre)
10. Let's Fight (16 July, Pines Theater)
11. Is That The Thanks I Get? (Tweedy solo, 27 October, Foellinger Auditorium)
12. Maybe The Sun Will Shine Today (date unknown)

On a related note, I have some good news surrounding Stop, Children, What's that Sound?, my ongoing series of free mp3s. In the past, I've hosted songs on the free space provided for my GooglePages site --but I was forced to reshuffle the lineup constantly, since it's limited to 100MBs (plus 10MBs per file).

Those disappearing mp3 links, though, are a thing of the past, now that I've discovered the awesomeness of eSnips -- a free service that grants its users an entire gigabyte (and up to 50MBs per file) for both private and public storage!

Sign up for your own eSnips account and start a music blog of your own. Meanwhile, keep an eye on my eSnips music folder, and you can get your hands on all T.A.M.S.Y.-approved tunes without having to wade through my shitty blogging.

Q: Why is Chief Wahoo smiling wider than ever?

A: Because ownership of the Hard Rock Cafe has been transferred to American hands -- Native American hands -- as Britain's Rank Group announced today it will sell the international restaurant & casino chain to the Seminole tribe of Florida in a deal worth nearly a billion dollars.

The deal apparently doesn't include the hugely valuable Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, which Cafe co-founder Peter Morton sold earlier this year to Morgans Hotel Group for $770 million (the land occupied by the hotel's pool is valued at $50 million alone, says Wikipedia). That package also included exclusive rights to the Hard Rock Hotel brand in the western half of the US.

In any event, one London analyst called the price of the Seminole deal "slightly disappointing." T.A.M.S.Y. knows nothing about the value of such things, but we hope that analyst is correct, because we're always supportive of Indians finding new ways to rape back the colonists.

We're not sure what to think, though, of the rumored changes the Seminoles plan to institute in Hard Rock Cafes worldwide...

RUMORED NEW POLICIES AT THE
FLORIDA SEMINOLES' HARD ROCK CAFES

• Overpriced beverages now referred to as "Seminole fluids."
• Line chefs getting high on break now required to smoke from peace pipe.
• Crazy Horse to receive lifetime supply of curly fries with purchase of full-price meal; Neil Young still required to pay for curly fries.
• Ticket booths outside of all Hard Rock Live! events now uniformly considered scalpers.
• Axl Rose's feathered hair now to contain actual feathers.
  
• Caucasians explicitly banned.
• Appetizers, entrees no longer designed to taste like shit.
• Reservations required.

Aside from all that, T.A.M.S.Y. offers kudos to the Florida Seminoles for proving that it really is a long way to the top if you want to rock & roll.

Susanna & the Magical Orchestra - It's a Long Way to the Top [mp3]

Melody Mountain, 2006

For what it's worth, that album is totally excellent. I've already made a spot for it near the top of my forthcoming best of 2006 list.

Q: Why wait 'til tomorrow to get the new Gwen Stefani album?

A: Um, because that's when it gets released. And because other, i.e., illicit means of acquiring it would, you know, fray the moral fibers in the wool sweater of your soul. Also because the album's not that great.

But if you're really just, like, SO EXCITED, OMG to hear it, I suppose you could get it off this morally reprehensible Frenchie's blog (which is hosting The Sweet Escape, the new Jay Z and several other past-their-prime urban hitmakers, through the chopshop they call Rapidshare).¹

If steal you must, though, remember to support the artists you love best by springing for the opticals come payday. Otherwise, your precious moral fibers will soon be little more than a ball of yarn.

(Not that your soul will have much need a wool sweater while it's burning for eternity in hell.)

¹ I haven't tested any of this stuff, by the way, so don't blame me if it turns out to be a recording-industry plot to blow up your computer, or spy on you while you masturbate or whatever.

Q: Where's that goddamn Gwen Stefani you promised me?

A: It's here. Sorry. I got distracted.

So yeah, the new Gwen Stefani is The Sweet Escape, and it drops next Tuesday (at a T.A.M.S.Y. affiliate near you), but it leaked earlier this week. Kudos to whomever at Interscope managed to keep it under wraps until now. Try before you buy!

Gwen Stefani - "Wind it Up"
Interscope Records, 2006

"Wind it Up" is the first single -- and, okay, it's been out for a while, but Idolator beat me to the punch with "Yummy," the song I'd been meaning to share before I got busy with procrastinating.

They also beat me to the punch by noting how Gwen is inexplicably channeling Fergie. Which is like Madonna ripping off Cyndi Lauper. Except if Cyndi Lauper was only famous for ruining Run-DMC¹.

Following in the footsteps (or ladylump-steps) of "My Hump," "Wind it Up" and especially "Yummy" ascribe to the new school of pop best described as "minimalist fuck music." After several years of slutty dance hits that copped Basement Jaxx's frantic production style, the music industry has apparently realized that they can save millions of dollars by ditching those exorbitant sample fees and going acapella. What they've lost in complexity, they make up for in dirty talking.

The lovely lady lumps are alive with the sound of minimalist fuck music.

I was going to refer to minimalist fuck music as "post-Neptunes," except it turns out both these songs were produced by the Neptunes. Fancy that.

"Wind it Up" does lean heavily on one sample: "The Lonely Goatherd," that erotic paean to yodeling from The Sound of Music. I'm not sure what loneliness or goatherding has to do with anything else in this song, but suffice to say yodeling is very hip, having also been featured on Shakira's recent album².

So for those of you would-be hit producers, just remember that if you want to rocket to the top of the charts, I have three words for you: minimalist fuck yodeling.

---

¹ Okay, fine, the Black Eyed Peas were never exactly Run-DMC. So if Cyndi Lauper had ruined the Fat Boys. Whatever.

² Shakira also likes The Sound of Music, except she's always disappointed by the part where they don't catch the Jews.

Q: Why, God, why?

No, but c'mon Dude, seriously: Why?

This kind of thing would be enough to make a man profoundly depressed. I mean, were he not already profoundly depressed.

It's just way too early in the year to be roasting this particular chestnut:

Hank Williams - "At the First Fall of Snow"
The Complete Hank Williams, 1998

No one is suffering more, though, than my adorable wittle Jack O'Lantern, who's freezing his pumpkin-spiced ass off out there.

O'Lantern: Wishes he'd never been carved.

And through it all, he puts on such a brave face. Oh Jesus, what a trooper!!!

Q: Boys and girls of every age, would you like to hear something strange?

A: Me too. And what's stranger than Northeast Ohio's homegrown freakshow, Brian Warner, on a soundtrack for kids?

Okay, a soundtrack for kids and stoned adults.

Marilyn Manson - This is Halloween
The Nightmare Before Christmas {OST | Special Edition}, 2006

Speaking of stoned adults, what are the chances that within a month of me quitting smoking weed, they would release The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3-freaking-D! God, what a travesty. I think it's time for a relapse.

Anyway, the Manson track is really pretty damn good. I apologize, Mr. Warner, for selling you short. The rest of the soundtrack is interesting, too, both in terms of how awesome Danny Elfman's songs still are and also for the remarkable terribleness of Fall Out Boy (who murders "What's This?") and She Wants Revenge ("Kidnap the Sandy Claws"). Honest to God, what the fuck is wrong with you, America's youth?

You can stream the whole thing at the soundtrack's official web site, but here's one more track, just because I really want to do her.

Fiona Apple - Sally's Song
The Nightmare Before Christmas {OST | Special Edition}, 2006

---

DID YOU KNOW? The character Sally was originally voiced by comedy genius Catherine "Not just the mom from Home Alone" O'Hara! Her impressive vocal talent, you may recall, was also featured in A Mighty Wind, in her swell duets with the surprisingly tuneful Eugene "Not just the dad from American Pie" Levy.

In Nightmare, O'Hara also voices one of the trio of nasties who kidnap the Sandy Claws, along with Paul "Mostly just Pee Wee Herman" Reubens and the talented Mr. Elfman. God, I love this movie!! Does anyone please have any weed???

Q: When there's something strange in your neighborhood, who you gonna call?

A: Trent Reznor!

Ray Parker, Jr. vs Nine Inch Nails - The Ghost that Feeds [link expired]
Mashed up by Nathan Chase, 2006

This could be the best mash-up of the year, excepting anything touched by Girl Talk.

Happy Hallow's Eve Eve, T.A.M.S.Y.-ettes!

Q: Why does modern music lack substance?

A: Because we're not listening to enough Mark Mallman.

Mark Mallman - Substances
Between the Devil and Middle C, 2006

It's got a beat, and you can dance to it.

Q: Can't get enough of them crazy Swedes?

A: Then you'll love Swedes Please, a whole blog dedicated to the music of them crazy Swedes. And they've got "I Wish That I Could See You Soon" available for your downloading pleasure. If I knew how to say "merci!" in Swedish, I totally would.

And just to cover all my bases, here's a different sort of Swedish music video.

Q: Did I leave my heart in San Francisco?

A: No, although I did leave several veins there once. Still, at least 57% of my left ventricle remains in the city that never sleeps and barely slept with me, N to the Y to the mofo'ing C. It's a conflict 'tween East and West that threatens to tear me asunder like so much Kit Kat bar, as I look to plot my next move from here in Cleve-O.

So here's a little song about nostalgia for the Big Apple -- from of all locales, Sweden's Herman Düne, who are much like their countryman Mr. Jens Lekman except minus the unbearable droning idiocy. If you can even tolerate Lekman (which many people inexplicably do), you'll want to make sweet unprotected love to Düne's new album, Giant. And I'm not just saying that because we're MySpace besties.

Herman Düne - Take Him Back to New York City [expired]
Giant, 2006

That one goes out to Sexy Teenage Susie in B to the R to the mofo'ing Ooklyn. And if you kiddies enjoyed that, perhaps you'll enjoy this music video, "I Wish That I Could See You Soon," the album's first single.

Love them crazy Swedes!

Q: Stop, children, what's that sound of silence?

A: It's the sound of me forgetting that I promised to post a song every day.

So to make up for that, I'm going to post a bunch today. Let's say eight. And they're all going to be from bands you haven't heard of, or haven't heard enough of. And they're going to blow your fucking mind into Toledo. Unless you're already in Toledo, in which case they're just going to blow your fucking mind somewhere else, possibly Ann Arbor.

And before you get all doubting Thomas on me, well -- hey, girl, please let me prove myself to you.

Stephen Brodsky - Prove Myself
Stephen Brodsky's Octave Museum, 2006

This album is inexplicably not available for preorder in the U.S. (only the U.K., it seems), which is a shame, because it's a fucking great record, and a good bet to make my top ten of 2006. It's all the infectuous, guitar-driven melodiousness of A.C. Newman, with none of the red-headed stepchildness*. Tell me what you think. Also, more to come.

*Not that there's anything wrong with being a huge dork, A.C. In fact, it's 45% of why I love the people of Canada, the other 55% being Evangeline Lilly.

STOP, CHILDREN #3: Decemberists/D Double Dip!

As promised, today I have a new track from the forthcoming Decemberists disc available for your previewing pleasure. But then the new Tenacious D single leaked, and with tomorrow being An Abundance of John Green Day, I'd have had to wait until Friday to post it, and that seemed indecent.

So what the hell? Let's drop 'em both.

---

The Decemberists
"The Crane Wife 3" [link expired]
The Crane Wife, 2006

Tenacious D
"The Pick of Destiny" [link expired]
The Pick of Destiny, 2006

Q: Does anyone want to start a ska band?

A: I don't play any instruments, and I hate ska, but I'd really like to have a ska band, just so we could have a classic ska name, like Mephiskapheles.

SOME IDEAS:

Askapolypse Now
Skaddam Hussein
Ska-arface
AskaJeeves.com
A School for Skandal
Mahmoud Ahmedineska
Skamerican History X
Trading In His Chevy for a Skadillac-ac-ac-ac-ac-ac
Oskama bin Skadin
George W. Ska
AskaJeeves.ska

Or we could just be a ska band that only covered Patti Smith, and call ourselves The New Unicorns. Because it'd be like Horses, but with horns.

This post is dedicated to Scott Cohen.