anyone is welcome to judge a rumble or tourney or review a station. i'll do the semi-finals after lunch.

Yessssss. I agree with you on the banjo...probably my favorite part of the song.

Then what does the winner get?

Im assuming an undeserved feeling of superiority

a free subscription to cmj

billy g vs. estone

billy g radio: The Beach Boys - Do It Again. Wow, billy g. Just wow. I don't even know what to say about this garbage. This is some awful live track off some abortion of a live album. Maybe I hate this band more than I thought I did. 2/10.

estone radio: The Stone Roses - This is the One. Not one of my favorite tracks off the album, but the cacauphonous sound of a lonely turd splashing in a toilet would beat what I just heard so estone wins in a landslide. 7/10.

Estone carries the day.


dalen vs. radcliffe

dalen radio: Air - Once Upon a Time. Never really heard much Air. I kind of liked the piano intro but then the vocal kicks in and my penis shriveled up inside my body which isn't a very good feeling. "I'm a little boy, you're a little girl, once upon a time." Oh my. This would be much better as an instrumental...in fact would probably score a 5. As is, well. 3/10.

radcliffe radio: The Rolling Stones - Brown Sugar. Shit, well. Maybe ol Roy Pearl has been doing some selective scrobbling to set up some guaranteed wins. Whereas that Air song made me momentarily impotent, this song has me waving it out the window at the people getting off the bus. 10/10.

Radcliffe wins.

i think billy g radio somehow got infected by bort listening. I don't own any beach boys live

nicely done rparis!




will start shortly

final four match

wenchlette vs. jagged

wenchlette Seabear - Hands Remember : haha, going back to an old favorite eh? nice little juxtaposition of the slow strumming and double-time lite-beat. this is dare i say beautiful but a tad slow and not as good as the previous stuff. still, a semi-respectable 6/10

jagged Josh Ritter - Real Long Distance : Well, if it's any consolation, i like this better than any previous Josh Ritter song i've ever heard. maybe there's hope for me. that being said it's simple/effective song that's partly been-there-done-that (even the song subject has been done aplenty) and the parts that were "different" - extra noises and the horn jumbles at the end just fall flat. 5/10

wenchlette has proven her Seabear strategy is solid. how will it hold up against either sanchez or twoguns? stay tuned to find out!

final four match

twoguns vs. sanchez

twoguns Tallest Man On Earth - Pistol Dreams. Love the guitar playing on this. can't tell whether i like the vocals or not. sometimes he hits a note with a swell twang and other times it makes me cringe. well, that's all there is to this. the song is pretty much Nth wave Dylan, which goes some way with me but not far. kinda drawn out at the end 5/10

sanchez Aterciopelados - El Estuche : more rock en espanol eh? while this is colombian and the previous band was argentinian i'm going to plead ignorance and say this is no better or worse or really all that different than the previous pull. 4/10

twoguns wins and will face wenchlette in the champ round!

LASTFM CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND

twoguns vs. wenchlette

twoguns glasvegas - polmont on my mind : interesting pull. i wish it didn't take so long to get the back beat in there. i love the "wall of sound" but sometimes i want to get faceplanted by it rather than just walk slowly up to it. i like this but i also like a nice pair of socks too. 6/10

wenchlette little jackie - the kitchen : hmmm. i was about to dismiss this as not being as good as "revolve" or "stoop" but this is actually pretty close. i'm really digging the variety of sounds in here. there's a verse, and then another part of a verse, and then the chorus, all the while some upbeat stuff playfully thrown in there too. 6/10

nail biter!

wenchlette Soul Coughing - Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago : i dig/dug these guys - good ol' alternajazz. i don't even care that this guy doesn't sing, just does some beat poet shtick. add in a little nostalgia/college radio factor and you've got a 7/10

twoguns Simian Mobile Disco - Tits And Acid : please tell me this is from a remix album because i swear i've heard this song before (and it wasn't SMD). maybe someone remixed them? anyway, this is somewhat like the kind of techno i like, but at the same time it feels like i should penalize them for nicking someone else's synth loop. 6/10

wenchlette is the CHAMP! she will reign supreme until whenever!

good game everyone!

my damn ethnicity foiled me.... DAMN YOU MOM AND DAD!!! DAMN YOU I SAY!!!

Aww yeah. My first win.

I'm working on getting that Searbear to you. My phyical and digital collection is in chaos at the moment.

Soul Coughing is one of my top bands of all time.

Well played, wenchlette. Good song to win it on, too.

woooo, wenchlette!! congrats.

Why thank you.

And Tommy, that was a fine round.

Alright. Since bort's done his and I've got plenty of free time, I'll do one up.

I've counted up 29 people including myself, though, so I think I'll grab a couple of random names from the obner last.fm group to make it an even 32.

Okay, I just went through the obner last.fm group in order of newest members and chose names I recognized to top off the participants.

Qualifying Matches

a nothern soul vs. wenchlette
thisotherkingdom vs. saint
timmyjoe vs. paladisiac
contradiction vs. legonads
patrick vs. twogunsholla
andyfest vs. shiv
dalen vs. sanchez
e-stone vs. f4df
ft vs. billyg
rparis74 vs. radcliffe
MiceElf vs. pete cockroach
harry vs. Idiotjed
drinky vs. red
promethium vs. jagged
duckyboy vs. mugwump67
bort vs. puma

Alright, let's do this.

(But we all know that bort's is the only opinion that really matters.)

Qualifying Match

a northern soul vs. wenchlette (Reigning Champion)

a northern soul Aphex Twin - 'Ageispolis' This is pleasant enough. Pretty far off from the few Aphex Twin tracks I have heard. Unfortunately it's also instrumental. That's just a tough break for you as I'm really not into instrumental music. Without vocals songs just feel incomplete to me. I really dig this as far as instrumental songs go, though. Feels very icy. It definitely conjures up all sorts of visual images. I might have to check out some more Aphex Twin next time I sit down to do some writing. This is actually really growing on me. You're not out of it yet. 7/10

wenchlette Jamie Lidell - 'Game For Fools' Northern Soul's chances are suddenly looking really good. By the sound of things, this is modern whiteboy soul. Now I'm by no means a soul aficionado but that which I do like was largely made in the '60s and '70s by black people. Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Nina, Etta, and people like that. I'm not saying this is bad just because it was made recently (presumably) and because the singer is white (I think). It's just indicative of a kind of music I don't like and nothing about this works against that. 4/10

Winner: a northern soul upsets the champ

Qualifying Match

thisotherkingdom vs. saint

thisotherkingdom Elvis Costello - 'Alison [live]' Oh shit. Sorry, saint. Better luck next time. What can I say? I love the man and I love this song. The live version isn't a ten-star rendition but it's solid and really nice. 8/10

saint Audio Learning Center - 'Passenger' Ooh. You could've at least put up a struggle, saint. I like a lot of unsual vocalists but there's a difference between eccentricity and whininess. Guess which one this is? 2/10

Winner: thisotherkingdom by knockout punch

Qualifying Match

timmyjoe vs. paladisiac

timmyjoe Wilshire - 'Special' Hmm. On paper this has all the hallmarks of music I like. Upbeat, catchy, male/female vocals... Unfortunately this is more Lilith Fair than Lollapalooza. The 'christian' tag might be biasing me a bit but I think I'd be giving this a thumbs down regardless. 3/10

paladisiac Nirvana - 'Breed' Interesting. My friends overdosed me so badly on Nirvana in highschool that I will never ever feel the need to listen to them again on my own. I wasn't even a big fan of them then but I didn't mind some of their stuff. Thankfully this isn't one of the singles. Paladisiac's definitely got this one but it could've been a lot closer if timmyjoe had offered up something else. 6/10

Winner: paladisiac with the grunge-kick

Qualifying Match

contradiction vs. legonads

contradiction Norfolk & Western - 'The Longest Stare' I don't know quite what to say about this one. It's the defintion of ho-hum for me. I don't dislike it but there's nothing I really do like about it. It's alright. Plus it's a little too long. 4/10

legonads Hello Saferide - 'I Was Definitely Made For These Times' Oh yeah! The first artist to show up that I actually voluntarily listen to. This a no contest. I love Annika but I haven't heard this song before. I didn't check out her last album, I think. Anyway this is everything I love in pop music. 8/10 (Edit: I forgot about Costello. HS is the second artist to show up on here that I listen to. The rest still stands.)

Winner: legonads with a blast of sunshine

Qualifying Match

patrick vs. twogunsholla

patrick Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - 'Messiah Ward' This could be a tough one. I'm very on the fence about Nick Cave. Sometimes I really enjoy him. Sometimes he's just too morose for me. This is another long song. I'm not a fan of songs longer than five minutes. And it's another Nick Cave song about death. Hmm. Yeah, I don't dislike this by any means but it's not something I'd choose to listen to. 6/10

twogunsholla The Killers - 'Human' lol. Luck was on your side, Pat. "Are we human or are we dancers?" Seriously? Hahaha. Granted the music is fine enough. Generic, inoffensive, catchy enough to guarantee plenty of play on the radio. But still. 3/10

Winner: patrick via Nick Cave killing the killers

Qualifying Match

andyfest vs. shiv

andyfest The Lemonheads - 'Black Gown' One of my favorite songs off a great album by one of my favorite artists. I adore everything Dando's done in the past two decades (that includes Juliana Hatfield) and this is no exception. I remember this was the free mp3 preview Vagrant released prior to the album. I was so afraid it would be terrible as it had been years since he'd use the Lemonheads moniker. And, even though this is a pretty radically different sound than his early '90s pop, it still rules. 8/10

shiv Kraftwerk - 'Aerodynamik (Kling Klang Dynamix)' Yeah, this is another no-brainer for me. Computery electronicy instrumental stuff is not my bag, as I clarified above. And this song is almost 7 minutes. I know I won't last that long. Okay, so it's not all instrumental. It also has robot vocals. That's not much better. We'll say... 3/10 I guess.

Winner: andyfest and his black gown