You Guys Into Jason Falkner?

Sometimes a song comes up in your iTunes shuffle and it just makes you smile. This happened to me today with Jason Falkner.

I first became aware of him because he played on the first Eric Matthews album. (Eric will remember that guy as a classic Drischord selection-- although one I no longer really like. Too coy and pretentious.) But then I got sent a Jason Falkner solo CD when I was writing for the Daily Northwestern. It was a collection of 4-track demos, about half of which had previously been released in fully "produced" versions on prior records.

Probably because I heard them first, I prefer the 4-track versions to this day. Raw and fun, but not undeveloped or lo-fi. This is probably the way these songs sound live.



Now, of course, I think of Jason Falkner mostly as the guy in The Grays who wasn't Jon Brion (and the one who wrote/sang their best song-- "Very Best Years"). He was also in Jellyfish-- a band I don't really know. Anyway, great power pop type of guy, and highly underrated.

Awesome cover

Everything about this Sweet Child O' Mine cover is amazing, from the outfits to the fact that there are several points in the song when each musician is _almost_ playing the actual part, but absolutely out of sync with the other two. But the point is not so much to make fun as it is to be thankful that youtube wasn't around when we were that age, because I am fairly sure that my band (shoutout to Pete X!) laid down performances that were almost as embarassing in my parent's basement (though I think even if youtube did exist then, we would have had the good sense not to post the footage):



Also, actually, Pete X was never this bad.

If Wyclef Jean Was President

I hope that in his campaign for president of Haiti, Wyclef remembers to uphold the seemingly supernatural promise he makes in the opening of this song.



"I'd get elected on Friday, assassinated on Saturday, buried on Sunday, then go back to work on Monday." (Not the plan I'd go with, but I trust he knows what he's doing).