Happy Friday Stashers!  Feels good to get the week behind you, doesn’t it?

Now, imagine the scene … you’re out on a Friday night with your ladyfriend.  The booze is flowing like the fountain of youth.  All you want to do is get blazed but you can’t cause you find that your lady has gone insane.  She’s on the bar dancing like a maniac.  She’s twirling her shirt around her head.  She may, or may not, have just flirted with the bartender.  All of this could’ve been avoided if you just stayed at home and fired up a J.

Has this ever happened to you?  If so, I suggest listening to this song!

Lee Rocker is better known as one third of the amazingly awesome Stray Cats.  Brian Setzer, the guitarist/vocalist/”leader” of the Stray Cats is one of my favorite guitarists ever, but this isn’t about him!  Since the band broke up, Lee went his own way and has been very successful in the rockabilly scene, which still thrives all across the country.  And I love me some rockabilly.

So, grab your fullest jar of pomade, pile your hair into a pompadour, hop into your hot rod and enjoy the weekend!

You can hear more of Lee’s music on his myspace page, his website, or through music.podshow.com.

Okay, I’ll stop.

Robin Tymm hails from Ashbourne, and describes himself as an “enthusiastic songwriter, reluctant performer,” which, right now, sounds a lot like me, so I can identify.  He has a definite singer-songwriter vibe, and his voice kind of sounds like David Gray.

This song, “Freedom,” is about going to jail and all the things he’s going to lose because of it, including his music and his liberties.  Sound familiar, Stashers?

You can hear more of Robin’s music on his myspace page, his garageband page, or through music.podshow.com.

I always get confused by drinking and smoking references.  I know you can get buzzed from drinking, but does it refer to smoking too?  I’m sure someone has felt buzzed while smoking… I know that you can’t feel blazed while drinking, but you can feel blazed from smoking…

(I know I should stop worrying about this but I can’t help it!)

Well anyway, I thought I’d continue the rocking week by featuring Ape House, a power pop foursome from Washington DC.  ”Are You Buzzed?” featured the simple power chord structure that made bands like Weezer and Fountains of Wayne famous.  They formed in 2001 and have been rocking the District of Columbia ever since.

You can hear more of their music on their myspace page, or through their website.

Their influences are AC/DC, the Stooges, and Motörhead, and they sound like a mishmash of all of those bands plus the Stones and just good 70s rock and roll.  They rock.  Let’s rock out on a Tuesday, shall we?

You can hear more of Mugwumps’ music on their myspace page, including “High or Low,” the other song I was considering playing for today.  They also have music on music.podshow.com.

Welcome back, Stashers!  I hope your Thanksgiving was chocked full of turkey, or tofurkey if you’re a vegan, or turbaconducken if you’re aiming for clogged arteries and an early death, and lots of, um … sacraments, let’s call them.

Oh, who am I kidding?  I hope you smoked yourself silly!

Who is that handsome redheaded man to the left, you ask?  Why, that’s me!  Now, I promise the Stash will never become a venue through which I will self-promote.  It is, and will always be, a showcase for artists across the country.

That being said, after hearing Chief Greenbud’s tune on the Stash last Wednesday, it made me realize that I wrote a holiday themed song about three years ago called “The Chrimmis Time Blues.”  It’s a silly song that’s somewhat pot-related, for a silly EP called Chrimmis Time! and has sat in the vault that is my computer’s hard drive ever since I wrote it.

And since it’s Monday and Monday = bluesday, I thought I’d play the song for you.  It’s nowhere near the caliber of Mr. Greenbud or any of the other music I’ve featured here, but it’s cute and funny and I think it will start off the holiday season (whatever that may be for you!) nicely.

Oh, and here’s the MP3 if you wish to download it!  The Chrimmis Time Blues

If you’d like to hear more of my music, you can head to my myspace page or to my website.  Now, enough self-promotion!  :)

Today we have a nice mellow track from Sean Hayes, an NYC-born, North Carolina-bred musician who grew up studying theatre before he turned to playing guitar — sounds a lot like how I got started playing music (except without the New York City or North Carolina parts).

While I don’t think “Smoking Signals” is particularly about the herb, if you take a look at the cover art for the album, you know, you just know, that some kind of mind-altering substance was used in its making.

Plus, if he’s an actor and a musician … let’s face it, there’s no way that guy hasn’t smoked weed before.

It makes me think, though … what kind of smoking signals are there?I can only think of three: the peace sign, the wave of your hand as you’re coughing up a lung from the last bong hit, and the pinched forefinger and thumb gesture you make when you want to make sure that your friend doesn’t bogart the joint going around the room.

But I am naive on such matters, of course.

You can, as always, check out more of Sean Hayes’s music on his myspace page or through his website.

Sean Hayes

“Smoking Signals” (mp3)
from “Alabama Chicken”
(Sean Hayes)

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Happy Monday, Stashers!  Today’s music is a long windey jazz song that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to include on the Stash, since it, like many great jazz songs, is long — seven minutes long, to be exact.  But on the other hand, it’s called “The Unabonger”!  And maybe you think that’s a typo but no, if you listen to the song there’s a specific point near the beginning when you can hear them taking bong hits.  Typo it is not.

Then I thought, maybe some of you have had a wild, exciting weekend, and that some of you have had a stressful, economy-stricken weekend.  So I’m playing this song to mellow you out on both extremes — to get you back into the swing of things, if you will.

Bennett Paster, pianist, met Gregory Ryan, bassist, in 1993 as faculty members of the Stanford Jazz Workshop.  At the same workshop, they met Cuban saxophonist Yosvany Terry Cabrera and percussionist Dafnis Prieto.  They brought their wildly differnent styles of music together for this 2001 release.

You can find out more about this album on the Grupo Yanqui website.

Bennett Paster & Gregory Ryan
“The Unabonger” (mp3)
from “Grupo Yanqui Rides Again”
(Miles High Records)

More On This Album

I’m gonna make this one quick, Stashers.  It’s Friday, the work week is over, and I think we all just have to go out and have the best weekend we can!

You’ve heard Los Lonely Boys on the podcast before, from the same album, no less, but this track is quite apropros, a rockin’ blues track for what I can only hope will be a rockin’ weekend for us all.

You can hear more Los Lonely Boys on their Myspace page, or through their website.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Los Lonely Boys
“Friday Night” (mp3)
from “Live At Blue Cat Blues – Dallas Texas”
(Blue Cat Blues Records)

More On This Album

Today’s Stash music comes from Brian Robbins, a man I found while randomly searching for the word “marijuana” on Myspace Music.  The truth, dear Stash listeners (& readers!), is that a good portion of the music out there that includes the word “weed”, “pot”, “marijuana”, “reefer”, “ganja”, “blazed”, etc etc, is not very good.  This shouldn’t be surprising, and one could make the argument that most of the music out there period isn’t very good.  But when you start searching for pot-themed songs, you tend to find a lot of silly garage bands with a 16-year-old lead singer who sings about pot because he’s trying to rebel against his parents, not fully realizing yet that there’s a good chance his parents smoke pot too.

I could probably write an essay about that topic, but I won’t.

So what struck me about Brian’s song “Marijuana” is that it’s about marijuana, and it’s really good!  It’s a nice light pop song about how screwed up our country is regarding cannabis laws.  Simple, straightforward, and catchy.

Brian is a Los Angeles-based recording artist, who earned a B.A. in Film Scoring from Boston’s Berklee College of Music.  So if you’re interested in producing a cannabis-based documentary, he’s your man!

You can find out more about Brian, as well as listen to other tracks from his two albums (which you definitely should, they’re great), on his myspace page or through his website.

Yes, that’s right, you’re reading that correctly.  I’m finally, finally playing a Bob Marley song.  The bad news is that it’s not an original song, but a remix of “Soul Shakedown Party” from his 1969 album Soul Shakedown.  The good news is that it’s a pretty good remix, and a great groovy tune for a Wednesday.

“Roots, Rock, Remixed” is touted as the first Bob Marley remix album, combining the classic analog sounds from Marley’s Black Ark days with a fresh digital touch.  As far as remixes go, they’re pretty standard, which is actually a good thing, considering they’re remixing Bob Marley here.  His original songs hardly need remixing in the first place, and the various mixers acknowledge that by being somewhat safe with their mixes.

If you want to learn more about “Roots, Rock, Remixed”, you can head to their myspace page or to their website.

Well … I don’t really have much else to say here.  I mean, it’s Bob Marley for Pete’s sake!  I’d link to his myspace page but … it’sBob Marley!

Bob Marley & The Wailers
“Soul Shakedown Party” (mp3)
from “Roots, Rock, Remixed”
(rockr / Quango / Tuff Gong)

More On This Album