Category Archives: rockabilly

Who’s the fool?

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My two loves are music and technology. In my day job, I write software. I’ve been writing code for over 13 years professionally. Before that, I would write little scripts on a TI-99/4A for fun. My first application was a program that would take your questions and answer you with a yes/no/maybe answer. Like a virtual Magic 8-Ball. This was needed because I didn’t have many friends, and talking to my computer allowed me some basic interaction skills. Honestly, I think even now I’d prefer my social interactions to be behind a computer keyboard!

I’ve often thought of starting a tech blog. Something along the lines of a Mashable or a Mental Compost perhaps. I may, one day, expand our inALLcaps brand to review books, movies, and gadgets. Until then, it’s exclusively music.

I am going to blend the lines a bit today and mention two cool technologies that tie into music. Well, it ties in once you understand the context.

A friend of ours came into town from Seattle (or just outside Seattle… /wink) for a bit of vacation time. They ended up staying at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. The story goes that in their room were two large framed photos on the wall. One was a montage of photos of the band Fall Out Boy. The highlight was a picture of Pete Wentz peeing.

The other picture was of a beautiful blond frontwoman, in a tight red dress. Here is the picture he took with his phone.

He showed me this picture while we were drinking at the Griffin downtown. I really wanted to know who this blonde bombshell was, as did he, but I had no clue.

The next day he posted the same picture up on his facebook wall. I was again intrigued, and thought about how I could figure out who this hottie was. I remembered an article I read somewhere about reverse image searching. It’s popular in the retail sector. Someone with an app like Amazon Pricecheck could snap a photo of a product for example, and the app would try to determine what product in Amazon’s inventory matched your photo. I’ve used the app and found it to be very hit-and-miss. This proves that the technology is out there, so I jumped on google and stumbled on to TinEye.

TinEye is essentially a reverse image search engine. You can submit an image to TinEye to find out where it came from, if modified versions of the image exist, or to find higher resolution versions.

I found this bit of marketing from their website:

TinEye is the first image search engine on the web to use image identification technology rather than keywords, metadata or watermarks. It is free to use for non-commercial searching.

TinEye regularly crawls the web for new images, and we also accept contributions of complete online image collections. To date, TinEye has indexed 1,953,157,319 images from the web to help you find what you’re looking for.

This looks EXACTLY like what I need to ID this image. I upload my friend’s photo, and within a second get returned some results. With another click I verify that this is Vinila Von Bismark from the rockabilly band Vinila Von Bismark & ​​The Lucky Dice.  I’m also able to get access to a higher resolution image of the singer.

Vinila Von Bismark performing at the Hard Rock

Vinila Von Bismark appears to be from Madrid and also seems to be a popular DJ. I don’t sound confident because I could find barely anything on google about Vinila that wasn’t in Spanish. If I trust Google Translate, another great technology, then it appears that she is actually a he! The more google results I found and translated, the more I think it is not a language translation error.

Awkwaaaaaard!

Click to play Vinila Von Bismark & The Lucky Dados – Bad Boys


I’M A MAN from Gustavo Lopez Mañas on Vimeo.

Let’s Do It Again

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Heard it from a friend who, heard it from a friend who, heard it on NPR. Got the album, listened to it 100 times, love it, realized it’s from 2007. Nina Diaz has the most amazing voice. Her sister Phanie hits the skins, and their longtime friend Jenn Alva plays bass. Joan Jett discovered them and signed them to her label. Morrissey took them on tour. Robert Rodriguez directed one of their recent videos. They’re Girl in a Coma. Here. Have a peek.

Wait – to say the video is directed by Robert Rodriguez sounds like the whole thing was planned.  He is a fan of theirs, went to see them at SXSW, pieced together shots from their performance, and gave them this video as a gift!  Yes, that Robert Rodriguez.  As in, Sin City.  In return, they contributed the song “Yo Oigo” to his film Machete.
The song in the video, “As The World Falls Down”, is from the band’s 2010 covers album.  This one is of David Bowie’s Labyrinth tune.  They also covered one of my favorite songs of all time, Ritchie Valens’ “Come On Let’s Go.”
Because they come from San Antonio and are from Latin descent, they’re being put in the Latino, in the Tejano, in the Alt Latino categories. This sound is Female Punk Rockabilly. I am pretty sure I just made that up. Google that shit. I love it. I want to dye my hair, paint on the eyeliner, and join the band. Or just prance in the background.

The girls are happy with Blackheart Records: It’s a “very low-key, relaxed label, which is perfect for us,” they say.  And you know, I should backtrack a bit.  Joan Jett got to them after they’d been touring a few years – even after Morrissey pulled them out of their little touring van and onto a plane to London.  After they released Both Before I’m Gone on Blackheart, they opened for Cyndi Lauper and Social Distortion.

I love that they have their own sound but do an amazing job of paying tribute to those who influenced their sound. Their second album, Trio BC, is named after the girls’ Grandfather’s band from the 50’s. Then on Adventures in Coverland, there is pretty much a cover from every band or artist that influenced them, including Selena.

It’s hard to pick a favorite from album #1, but I’m going to share “Mr Chivalry” from Both Before I’m Gone and “Come On Let’s Go” from Adventures in Coverland.

Click to Play Girl in a Coma – Mr. Chivalry

A little of the old, and more of the even older

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So I was having breakfast in this diner I go to and I heard an artist I hadn’t really listened to in quite some time. The guy’s name is Louis Prima. Most people younger than myself don’t know who he is. It’s understandable, considering that he’s from the Vegas limelight of the mid to late 1950’s. However, some people may remember him through more of a pop culture window. Anyone that saw Disney’s The Jungle Book may well remember King Louie. Well that voice, my friends, was that of Louis Prima’s.

Well, he was one of the first big stars in Las Vegas. We’re talking just before the Rat Pack came in and took his crowd. He would pack the Sahara’s showroom every night with this mix of risque humor and swingin’ jazz. It was like New Orleans, but wilder. He had the help of a great sax player by the name of Sam Butera, and his band, The Witnesses. Here you get a good example of the craziness of what this guy could do. Here I’ve given you guys an instrumental cover of Love of My Life (O Sole Mio) as well as a massively energetic stomper in St. Louis Blues. Definitely check this guy’s catalog out if you’re into this stuff. It’s not all this frenetic, but just imagine watching a show that this guy put on!

[Download Louis Prima – Love Of My Life (O Sole Mio)]

[Download Louis Prima – St. Louis Blues]

Next up is a track from a somewhat forgotten band from the late ’90’s. They were the Amazing Royal Crowns and they hailed from Providence, Rhode Island. When I was still living up in the Boston area, I had heard about these guys, and am pretty pissed I never got to see them live. Tons of energy like you’ve never seen, and probably never will. They’re classified as “psychobilly” and this is the first track off of their self-titled debut.

[Download The Amazing Royal Crowns – Shiverin’ In The Corner]

Yep. The obligatory message reminding you to not be a leech and go buy this stuff! If you download and not support the artist? A kitten somewhere dies. Or a limbless kid contracts a venereal disease. I dunno. Just go buy this stuff!