Newsletter 5-12-08

Hey Everyone,

I want to thank everyone who came out this past Saturday to Buddie's Tavern to help celebrate my birthday. I had so much fun that I felt way younger than I actually am. Jim Testa, Echofission, The Successful Failures, Mod Fun, and the Heshers (not the Hershers), all put on incredible sets. I also have to thank Mike & Tony for making the bands sound so good, and Karen, Curt and the rest of the people at Buddie's. It is such a great venue, and I am thankful for every opportunity I get to do a show there.

The next BlowUpRadio.com Free Concert at Buddie's Tavern will be on Saturday June 28th and will feature sets by Agency, and Matt Colligan.

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While my birthday show was this past Saturday, my actual birthday is Tuesday May 13th, so on Tuesday I have decided to do a special edition of Lazlo's Den playing and talking about some of the many songs that affected my life and inspired me. There is no way I'll get through all of the myriad of songs out there that means something to me, but hopefully this will give a little more insight to me.

Of course Tuesday's on Lazlo's Den in usually New Music Tuesday, but this week we'll make it new Music Monday, and we'll feature music from Matt Lenny, Sudden Ensemble, Duffy, The Orb, Rockets Away, and more.

Wednesday on Lazlo's Den don't miss an interview with Tom Brislin from Spiraling. They have a big CD release show on Sunday at the Stone Pony for their new CD, "time travel made easy".

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Concert Picks for this week:

Lazlo (BlowUpRadio.com)
This is a great weekend for live music, starting Thursday night with what I'm told is the last show by the Vacationers (featuring members of Kohuff & The Ergs) at Asbury Lanes on a bill with The Future Kings Of Nowhere (an amazing band from north Carolina).

Thursday night also begins the Seaside Music Festival, a free music fest with tons of great bands playing for free throughout the weekend in Seaside Heights. The full schedule is at www.seasidemusicfest.com.

Saturday night brings another free show to Buddie's Tavern, this time featuring Nerve Tonic, the band formerly known as Funch whose new EP is an incredible blend of 70's punk, with rockabilly swing and swagger. Also on the bill is Six To Eight Mathematics and Steve Bello Band.

And close out your weekend with an early evening show at the Stone Pony on Sunday to celebrate the release of Spiraling's new CD, "time travel made easy".


Jim Testa (Jersey Beat)
Saturday, May 17

SCREAMING FEMALES, Old Haunts, No Connection, Sam Weir, Full Of Fancy - The Parlor, New Brunswick NJ - 6 pm, $5, all ages

Screaming Females and Full Of Fancy are two of New Brunswick's most exciting new bands, the former a maelstrom of post-punk spazzcore fury and the latter a punk-pop confection with giddy female harmonies. The other bands are in town on tour. For the address to The Parlor, email jim@jerseybeat.com


Gary Wien (Asbury Music)
picks this week include Monday and Tuesday nights at the Saint in Asbury Park. On Monday, there's an interesting band from Austin, Texas called 54 Seconds which happens to feature Spencer Gibb (son of Robin Gibb of The Bee Gees) - if that isn't enough to get you out on a Monday, be sure to catch Skinny Meatloaf - one of the top local Jersey Shore bands playing under a fake name for the night. Should be a great show! Then on Tuesday, Thriving Ivory from California makes a stop in town with Jersey boys, Agency opening the night.

And then on Thursday, head to the Twisted Tree Cafe for Laura Warshauer at 8pm and then swing over to the Stone Pony on the other side of town for Nicole Atkins who will headline a bill with Eli "Paperboy Reed" and Sikamore Rooney. The Pony is also the place to be on Sunday when Spiraling hosts their CD release party with special guests April Smith and A Love Like Pi.

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And now it's time for this week's Pissed Off!

I got a press release the other day dealing with the band Ludo (www.ludorocks.com). Ludo is a band on the Island Def Jam label.

An excerpt of their Press Release follows:

"For anyone still lost or missing, Ludo will be featured on 45 million (!) milk carton side panels in a massive promotional campaign and XBOX 360 prize pack contest, to be launched next week in conjunction with Milk Media and MilkRocks.com. The milk cartons will be distributed to summer schools and camps throughout the U.S. from May 15th to July 31st. Kids will be directed to the MilkRocks.com homepage, where they'll find a click-through to a newly created Ludo artist profile providing contest entry details along with music and video links."

Now I have Ludo's CD, "you're awful, I love you", and there are some good songs on it that I have played on Lazlo's Den. However, with the single being titled, "love me dead", and other song titles including, "drunken lament" and "the horror of our love", and lyrics which include, "love me cancerously, like a salt-sore soaked in the sea", "you're a parasitic, psycho, filthy creature finger-bangin' my heart", "I drink more than a sailor on a shore pour the rum in my eyes, tell me lies", "'just one more night...' you ask so tenderly - a softer side I'd longed so long to see, you slip inside, we'll work it out tomorrow...", and the very blunt statement, "I'd rip my eyes out for you"...one has to wonder if marketing this album to kids is really the right approach.

I'm sure some of you will point out I'm getting old (after all, I turn 35 tomorrow), and that growing up we all heard some lyrics in pop songs that weren't necessarily meant for kids, but I feel there is a difference between a song played on the radio where anyone (child or adult) can listen, and the parents have the opportunity to have some guidance over what their kids are listening to, and another for kids to be marketed to with a milk box promotion aimed at them with music that really should not be marketed directly to kids.

In 1982 when I was 9 years old a song like J. Geils Band's, "centerfold", may not have been age appropriate for me, and while I heard the song constantly on radio and MTV (back when they played videos), they weren't marketing directly to children like Ludo's label is with this milk box campaign.

So I'd like to say shame on whoever it is at Island Def Jam that decided to market Ludo's music to kids. While I'm happy they're promoting bands who play their own instruments and write their own songs, lyrically, this just doesn't seem appropriate for kids.


That's all for this week folks.

Peace,
Lazlo
www.BlowUpRadio.com