So… I buy probably an average of a couple CDs a week. Yes, I know – so uncool in an age of .aac files delivered right to your pretty little iPod for $0.99 a song. But just like it took me about 10 years to switch from tapes to CDs, so I imagine it’ll probably be another 5 years or so till I convert. Besides, I’m still not sold on the idea of buying DRM’ed music at 128kbps… especially after the whole Google Video fiasco. You’d think that big companies like Apple wouldn’t ever do that, but Google’s a pretty big company, too…

Anyway, that rant aside, I like to spread the word about some of the good music I find. Especially because it’s often from bands that would shit their pants if one of their records ever went gold. Or even silver. So they need your money a whole lot more than Kanye West or Carrie Underwood does. So here’s the latest installment of suggestions of something you can fill your iPod with:

Bad Brains – Bad Brains

Okay, so this isn’t a new record by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s still solid. One of the pioneers of hardcore, Bad Brains manages to mix frenzied tempo’ed thrashes in with just straight up dub and reggae. Listening to the album is a bit like mixing vodka and Red Bull – pulls you in both directions at once, but lovingly so. And when it’s full speed ahead, man does it fly.

Streetlight Manifesto – Somewhere In The Between

I make no secret about being a Streetlight fan. Loved the first album. Love the second one. You could call it ska, but you’d be wrong… the band has four (exceptionally talented) horn players, and it’s definitely horn-driven music, but Tomas’s songwriting has the horns filing the sonic space usually reserved for guitar solos and piano riffs. The resulting sound is full and complex, and not the kind of thing you usually find in uptempo, hard-hitting, punk-influenced rock. Plus the songs themselves weave their way in and out of memorable melodies, with just enough structure to hold them together, while avoiding the pop-trap of clubbing you over the head with verse-chorus-verse. Anyway, I’ll stop waxing poetic. Just go buy the damned album. And write your local music mag and tell them to review it already. It’s a travesty when the Romero-esque corpses of Led Zeppelin are on the cover of Rolling Stone (fucking retire already!) and bands like this fly completely under the radar.

(On a side note, we saw them play in Fullerton last month, at a tiny little club, and I get goosebumps every time I see them play. No fancy stage show. No backup dancers. No fireworks, video walls, hydraulic platforms or costume changes. Just seven guys playing the fuck out of their instruments, and a bunch of rabid, sweaty fans singing every last word back at them. Bliss for me, anyway… One of the few bands I know of for whom the music is just plain enough, and anything more would be superfluous and crass.)

Zolof The Rock And Roll Destroyer – Schemantics

Despite the name, they’re not a nordic speed-metal band that dresses like ogres and eats live rats at their shows. In fact, the singer / songwriter is a chick (excuse me – lady), and they play poppy, retro synth-rock. I liked their first two albums (well, and EP and an LP, to the best of my knowledge), but I think the music and lyrics have grown up a bit on this one, and I have a hard time getting sick of it. It’s still self-consciously young, moderately geeky / cheeky, but I think that’s one of the things that makes the music in this case. Yeah, it’s catchy, and yeah, it would even fit right in on MTV. But even then, I think it would escape being obnoxious (well, if I start hearing it at the local Albertsons, ala No Doubt, then I might have to declare Jihad on them, too… but until then…)

The Loved Ones – Keep Your Heart

They were the opening band at a show we saw a while back, and we missed all but the last minute of the last song. No problem, we thought… we’ll just buy their album and check them out later (I like to support the bands whenever I can by buying all their shit at shows). Turns out all they had was their EP… on vinyl. I’m not cool enough to own a record player… mostly because I can’t find a model that fits in the stereo slot on my car (seems these days they only make them wide enough to accomodate CDs, if you can imagine that). So I bought the album anyway, with a vow to either buy or find a record player to listen to it on (which nearly became a $100 purchase to listen to an EP in an archaic format from a band I never even knew I liked)… fast forward a few months, and I still haven’t listened to the record. But I DID hear a track I liked on one of the radio stations in the game “Saint’s Row,” wherein you can tune in to fictional radio stations while committing virtual felonies in your imaginary stolen car. Bitchin, I said… I wanna find out who that band is. Well, I was too lazy to look at the liner notes and find out.

Where this finally comes full circle was a couple weeks ago, when I was shopping for some new music on Amazon. I knew I wanted to hear more of this band (they’re also on the Fat Wreck Chords label, which is usually a good thing). I listen to some of the tracks, and lo and behold! They’re the same band with the tune I liked from the video game where you get to be tremendously evil. Cool! So I bought the album. Long story short, it’s pretty darned solid. Can’t get some of the songs out of my head, but in a good way. So if you’re not into horns, synthesizers, or dub, this might be your piece of pie. And it you’re into all of those things, hell, give this one a listen, too.