Kiss it dudely.

Torche's 2005's self-titled effort on Robotic Empire had everybody making the obvious comparisons to the last echoes of Floor still floating around. Meanderthal was 2008's breakthrough as far as finding a unique voice distancing from the band members' individual pasts (besides Floor, Cavity, Shitstorm, Mehkago N.T., Ed Matus' Struggle, Panda Bite, Tyranny of Shaw, Tunes for Bears to Dance To, etc...) and then a slew of EPs and splits kept the appetites whet and the band in the spotlight.

This is good. This is what you expect. And while those sourpusses over at Pitchfork might want to wield their "mighty" cool swords all over town, remember this: Steve Brooks was setting up his mastery of the "guitar bomb" for the very bands these people went gaga for when they were in diapers and the internet was Al Gore's feverish dream. It's true.

So now comes the band's new album, Harmonicraft. And if those cranks at Pitchfork feel like "predictability" is at play on this album, I posit the following: This is new guitarist Andrew Elstner's first ride on the bull that is Torche, and here you have everything that you need for a solid album: soaring vocals, gruff guitars, a well-gelled rhythm section, and varied compositions that work together symbiotically to create a full and ethereal aural experience.

Indeed!

Without galvanizing sentiments about WWII and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, let's just, for the sake of music, assume that "kamikaze" is a bomb of sorts mired in gloomy suicidal thoughts. Okay. Today we have the newly released One Crown Productions video for HYPE's track "Kamikaze" and it's everything you want in a southern hip-hop song.

With a twist.

Gone is the usual glamour of hip-hop in which the bling is idolized and the women look like CGI dreams come true. There's no Gucci here, no Escalade with accessories that cost three times my year's salary. No, this song goes down in a trailer park and if you're not jonesing for an ice-cold Steel Reserve afterwards, then you're not having as much fun as the flag-waving puro in the beginning.

Still awesome

Well, it does happen in threes, does it not? First Adam "MCA" Yauch, then Donald "Duck" Dunn, and now the First Lady of Love Donna Summer.

Born LaDonna Adrian Gaines in Boston, Massachusetts, Donna Summer's rise to prominence was through the wild days of the disco era and though that cemented her musical reputation in the annals of history, her story runs much deeper than that.

Busting out of Boston with psychedelic outfit The Crow, Summer (then known as Donna Gaines) had already proven that though well-versed in the spirituals and singing traditions of her church, it wasn't just Mahalia Jackson records that kept her up at night. Filled with love for Motown girl groups like The Supremes, it would be Janis Joplin's work with Big Brother and the Holding Company that would prove a major influence in deciding her career path.

Her early New York City days were filled with missed opportunities but after losing a spot in the musical Hair, it would be an offer to follow the show to Europe that would prove the better bargain for Summer.

Awesome bass: Check. Awesome hair: Check!

Whether you know it or not, Donald "Duck" Dunn's sleazy (in a good way) bass lines have reverberated through your body at some point in your life. Known more as a "filler" bassist than a conventional rhythm man, Dunn's plucks were an integral part of the session sound of Stax Records' '60s and '70s sound.

Along with fellow session men Al Jackson Jr., Booker T. Jones, and childhood pal Steve Cropper, Dunn was part of the legendary stable of Stax men that became the world-famous and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame recognized (1992) Booker T. & the MG's. While he wasn't onboard for the recording of their classic Green Onions album, it was his bass that propelled the compositions and covers since he joined in 1964.

If nothing of this rings a bell, maybe his participation in 1980's The Blues Brothers film starring Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi will, as the bass player with the dynamite one-liner quote: "We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline!"

Boom Bap!!!

We here at New Times take pride in promoting local talent, and one of our favorite figures in the hip-hop scene is Serum. When he contacted me with this latest venture, I was fairly excited to check it out but was not prepared for the magnitude of local collaboration it entails.

First, the concept is in line with previous efforts like "Afro Pick" and "The Precursor" in which he revitalizes themes of Afrocentrism, corporate paranoia, and suspect spirituality. Secondly, the boom bap is in full effect with Manifesto doing the call and response as well as coheadlining the front half of the new video with Serum as imbedded journalists in some secret society.

This song, "Savior's Arrival," produced by Ekcel Beats, is off their new album, The S&M Project: Hott Waxx, and is available as a free-standing video here.

Aaaaaaaaaahoooooooooooh!!!

It is no secret that we are big, nay, huge Pool Party fans. No other band embodies the mythical ethos of tropical punk rock via Iceland like these festive beach-themed motherfuckers. So much so that their debut full-length, Pool Party Yeah! Complete Greatest Hits of All Time is in essence nothing short of the wild claim the title suggests.

Known for some lo-fi work around town that has at times involved go-go dancers, flotation devices, cortaditos, and a bizarre fascination with the well-being of horses and the people who love them, Pool Party recently turned to the visual skills of the talented Julian Yuri Rodriguez to produce a video for their its Ramones-soaked masterpiece, "Raised by Wolves."

An instant classic? We certainly think so. This semiautobiographical tale of vocalist/guitarist Hand Gloveless' raison de vivre is certainly not short on pseudo-National Geographic footage, shimmery golden drapes, and urine. Lots of urine. But it's safe for work somehow.

Portlandia might try and stab in the dark at getting you reminiscing about the '90s (1890s and 1990s), but nothing gets you hopping into the old time machine like a good old fashioned set of delicious and pleasurably guilty whatever wave of ska. Well, not so much whatever wave. In those idyllic early years of the 1990s, ska was king and plaid clothes the norm.

Punks would put their hawks down and go out dancing, skins would press their Fred Perry polos and swing out with their Chelsea-cut girls and rastas would speed up their bobs. Ah, yes, the early '90s ska scene was a somewhat harmonious one, wasn't it? And while Florida had its fair share of bands like The Jive Step Bunch, Baccone Dolce, Magadog, and Miami darlings Against All Authority, one of the few bands on the national scale who was making waves was the Mighty Mighty Bosstones.

And here, 29 years after forming, the plaid-clad freaks from New England are still at it with more gusto than ever!

Your eyes don't deceive you; that is a keytar.

Dearest readers, I have been a contributor to these pages for well over eight years now, and I've enjoyed a certain stylistic free range that is typically not allowed aesthetically or socially by journalistic moral standards. That said, in today's blog post, we'll be hailing Herbie Hancock's upcoming SunFest appearance through two isolated instances of my life.

If the sheriffs don't kill this puppy, we'll have us a good time.

Arguably one of the most charismatic faces in the history of jazz, Hancock has been on a trailblazing path since his tenure in Miles Davis' second Quintet incarnation (roughly 1964 to 1969) and continues to be an influence permeating over the soft tendrils of jazz with his funky takes on bebop, R&B, fusion, and electronic applications to classical jazz.