1. 3rd Rail Kissing Contest
2. And I
3. Stay Out of My Corner
4. I-40
5. Breakthrough
6. Orchard
7. I Lied Again
8. Thunderhead
9. Soft
10. Apologetics
11. Nathaniel
12. Leave it Alone
13. Flat Ground
14. Killing Calm

There they are. Hopefully I will be fully done with the artwork for the physical CD soon.

It’s called Apologetics:

EDITED HERE TO ADD A LINK AFTER RELEASE:

Go Here to Listen Now

There you have it. There are 13 more where those came from. Please spread the word if you think it is any good at all. Especially if you find it good as an extremely low budget basement recording which the whole album will be. I am proud of the low budget tactics I have used and think I have produced something pretty darn good, remembering that I just taught myself to play the drums too.

The album will be called “Ashby” and runs about 58 minutes so far. It will be another release from the band that the ol’ ball and chain and I formed called “The Squatches” and will be available on iTunes, AmazonMp3, Bandcamp.com and various other places. I am still working on getting a physical CD with my own artwork going. I like to do my own artwork and even this single’s artwork is my own. If anyone can steal a copy of any of my recordings of my music I promise to not get too angry if they tell at least 5 other people to check it out. Hope you enjoy and spread the music.

Many comments of almost all kinds are appreciated.

I have a brother who is a bit of a mine-o-phile and should feel warm and fuzzy about that video.

To satisfy this weeks post I will put up something that is kinda dumb that I made during the recent NBA strike. I really dislike unions and this situation was no different.

Radiohead “King of Limbs” was a horrible and ugly piece of crap. That is the nicest thing I can say about it.

On to the good stuff.

(1 to 10 scale where 10 is very good, 5 is neutral and 1 is very bad)

10 – Elbow “Build a Rocket Boys” 6.8 ☆
This is the weakest entry from Elbow in a long time. It was too slow across all songs and somewhat monotonous. That said, they are some decent slow, flowy songs.

Lippy Kids

9 – Cake “Showroom of Compassion” 7.2 ☆
Just another good showing from Cake as usual.

Federal Funding

8 – Incubus “If Not Now, When?” 7.7 ☆
Many people really had nothing but vitriol for this album. I am not with them. It wasn’t amazing and only has a handful of memorable songs but it did give me a pleasant listening experience.

In The Company Of Wolves

7 – Jeff Martin “The Ground Cries Out” 8.0 ☆
This effort from “The Tea Party” frontman shows his huge contributions to his band. Good solid rock with a special flavor.

Queen Of Spades

6 – Soundgarden “Live on I-5″ 8.8 ☆
While it is not an album of new material this deserved to be up in this list because it contains some great material. This album has some of the best live performances I have ever heard from Soundgarden.

Searching With My Good Eye Closed

5 – Rich Robinson “Through a Crooked Sun” 9.2 ☆
Rich’s effort this year has surpassed his previous album “Paper”. He displays very well what he brings to The Black Crowes’ table in this great album.

Gone Away

4 – The Devil Whale “Teeth” 9.4 ☆
I only heard of “The Devil Whale” this year and missed the previous album. “Teeth” has great stuff packed into it and is good representation for Salt Lake City Utah.

Golden

3 – Foo Fighters “Wasting Light” 9.5 ☆
Usually by this point in a career bands just put out boring, routine stuff. The Fighters are not following the same old path.

Rope

2 – Explosions in the Sky “Take Care, Take Care, Take Care” 9.9 ☆
It was hard to not place this one in the number one slot and I had to take it down to the billionths decimal place to be able to break the tie between it and the number 1 choice. All instrumental (besides some yelps and such) and no good for anyone without an attention span, this is another amazing album by these guys from my hometown, Midland Texas.

Last Known Surroundings

1 – The Parlor Mob “Dogs” 9.9 ☆
Seriously, get this album. It is packed full with great guitars, drums and vocals throughout. I can only find a couple of nit-picky things with this album that bring it to a 9.9 on my scale. It truly is one of the best albums I have ever heard. Whether it is heavy, fast or flowing that you are looking for this album has it.

How It’s Going to Be

Hard Enough

As usual I am open to suggestions or friendly reminders as to why I am wrong or what I missed.

Now go prepare if you can get past the tears.

UPDATE:

More commentary:

Uuuuuugh {shivers}

Pro
He is really shiny in a debate and he doesn’t like the media.

Con
In 2010, Gingrich supported Dede Scozzafava as a Republican candidate for congress only because she was Republican. Dede’s views do not resemble anything conservative and Gingrich stated that in supporting her he was simply being loyal to the party so the votes don’t get split and the Democrats win. The question for Gingrich is: If the Republican supports everything the Democrats want, what is the difference between a Democrat winning on a split vote and this Republican winning? The only reason I could come up with for Newt Gingrich not wanting someone who possesses his professed ‘conservative’ beliefs is that he does not actually hold such views. Rather than be guided by principles he prefers to play political games and try for power. Personally I would rather go down in flames while still holding onto my principles than to compromise on what I believed to appease other people.

In May of 2011 Gingrich proclaimed support for a health-care mandate, something that any freedom loving conservative loves, when he said, “I’ve said consistently we ought to have some requirement that you either have health insurance or you post a bond.” Golly, I am not sure he is all that conservative.

Then there’s this classic:

Oh yeah, Mr. Gingrich let’s get our leaders to make new laws and policies that will force a spark of innovation, since that is how a free-market conservative would do things and it works so well.

And there’s this in which he supports green companies like Solyndra as sound businesses.

He also says that people who oppose farm subsidies are “big city” folk who hate farmers. Oh yes let’s prop up private businesses with taxpayer money Newt, conservative to the core.

In 1987 Newt cosponsored the “1987 Pro-Fairness Doctrine Bill”. That’s right the good old fairness doctrine that forced businesses to provide types of content that they may disagree with or that may not be good for business. That sure sounds conservative and Constitutional Newt. Oh boy.

Newt Gingrich voted to form the Department of Education in 1979. Education used to be under the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, but in 1979, with Newt’s and Jimmy Carter’s seal of approval, the government expanded with new individual departments. The new Department of Education had more power over school curricula and hiring, taking some power away from state and local authorities. The department has been a huge hole for politicians to dump money into without ever seeing improvements in student performance. In fact, almost all important numbers, such as graduation rates, have either declined or remained stagnant since the formation of the Department of Education in 1979. There is no authorization in the U.S. Constitution for federal involvement in education. Supporting this department is a violation of the oath Gingrich took to uphold the Constitution. The infamous American Communist William Z. Foster, in his 1932 book “Toward Soviet America” said,

“Among the elementary measures the American Soviet government will adopt to further the cultural revolution are…[a] National Department of Education…the studies will be revolutionized, being cleansed of religious, patriotic, and other features of the bourgeois ideology. The students will be taught the basis of Marxian dialectical materialism, internationalism and the general ethics of the new Socialist society.”

This hardly seems like a conservative position for Gingrich to take, especially the part about how the communists called for the formation of the department as part of the way to overtake America.

In 1980 Gingrich voted to give most favored nation status to Communist China; you know the one that kills people in rice paddies. We now get all of our crap from human-rights-violating China and they now own more of U.S. debt than any foreign country.

Gingrich also supported the US signing an agreement to get in on the whole, “General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization” (GATT/WTO). This took the power given to congress by the people in the Constitution, “to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations”, and gave it away to the international body “The World Trade Organization”. The Constitution does not allow congress to give away the duties and powers specifically granted to it, to an unelected foreign body.

But the big glaring reason to not trust him, is that his own wife wives could not trust him. Once any politician has an affair, you really see how good their word is. If a promise is made to the person that they love and they break it in the most offensive way, surely they will not care about an oath they took in behalf of strangers. Gingrich had an affair while going after Bill Clinton for having an affair. Technically, he went after Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice, but he did tout family values and character as important, which makes him an untrustworthy hypocrite.

All of these and more add up to make me not trust Newt Gingrich when he says,

“I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”