Paul Basile...

I was given the heads up about Paul Basile from my friend Grey who can be, at times though rarely, a pretty hip guy. Paul had contacted Grey on Myspace about being "friends". Grey actually went and listened to his music, where as I always start with the best intentions of doing just that and then never do. But thanks to Grey's prompting I actually made the long cyber journey over to Basile's Myspace page and listened. Basile has the whole acoustic singer/songwriter deal going but instead of sounding absolutely run of the mill he instead evokes early Richard Buckner, Nick Drake, some Violent Femmes. He's got a thin voice that compliments his lyrics well (I immediately latched onto his line about "being up for days" as I had a late night on Saturday/Sunday and at my advanced age it takes approximately two and a half months to recover from 1 long night).

Basile is streaming a number of songs from his website. I like these:

Further North

Down And Out


In a non-music but decidedly political aside I'd like to encourage everyone to check out Iraq For Sale. It's a documentary on the privatization of the war in Iraq, how it puts our soldiers in jeopardy, wastes billions of our tax dollars, and lines the pockets of the administration's cronys.