CARTER'S CHORD
It's long day living in Reseda, Tom Petty told us once, and that's the Los Angeles 'burb that housed the ranch these three pretty sisters grew up in; their parents, pals of Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter, were in the outlaw country biz. Now Becky, Emily, and Joanna Robertson are signed to Toby Keith's excellent but not particularly successful label Show Dog Nashville, and their self-titled debut album—not due out in physical form for many moons—entered the Country Album chart at No. 59 this week as a digital exclusive. Web-savvy tweens made Taylor Swift a star, Nashville believes, and here's more fodder for 'em. Anyway, real nice harmonizing on each of the four snippets-not-songs on the Carter's Chord MySpace page. "When We Get There" opens shimmering not far from "All The Young Dudes" by Mott the Hoople, and the single "Different Breed," available for free at iTunes and about being jealous of stable girls who promptly send out thank-you notes, starts with dark blues guitars. Here's how the girls explain the latter song on their MySpace blog: "One of us had run into an ex-boyfriend with their 'perfect' new girlfriend and we were venting about how we are SO NOT THAT GIRL! We try but we are far from the girls who have everything together all the time." Makes sense, but an even more stellar blog entry is dated March 29: "I feel like talking about Soulja Boy. If you haven't seen the video of me doing the Soulja Boy dance, it's on our YouTube channel and our Myspace. Still not quite sure what 'crank that soulja boy' means, but I'm pretty sure it's something inappropriate. I have to give a shout out to my friend Maria for teaching it to me. Without you, I, a skinny girl wearing leggings and 'Robin Hood Boots' as my friends call them, would not be all over YouTube and Myspace doing this glorious dance." In a different video, the girls also dance to Peaches & Herb's "Shake Your Groove Thang" and Kool & the Gang's "Ladies Night" on their tour bus. Which makes the eight-minute "This Is Carter's Chord" promo vid—where they insist they grew up listening to Ricky Skaggs and George Strait, as opposed to the Counting Crows and Lauryn Hill and Jimmy Eat World albums listed all over their Amazon album-recommendation page—even funnier. And the vintage home videos are pretty cute, too.

ANA POPOVIC
Yugoslav-born before Communism's collapse in Eastern Europe helped change that mailing address to Serbia, but long based in Amsterdam, "Europe's Hottest Guitar Player" (her MySpace claims) enters the Blues Album chart at No. 9 this week with her fifth album, Still Making History, even though I bet you never knew she made history before. Though some folks insist she's "the female Hendrix," the tunes on her MySpace sound pretty stodgy—well, the riff in "Hungry" is kinda chunky, maybe. But she's said to incorporate funk, reggae, fusion, and Latin too, and she's covered Steely Dan and Tom Waits while liking Stevie Ray Vaughan too much. On YouTube you can marvel as she jams with a blues band from Russia; her solo lasts from 2:26 to 6:43, and the Russians play like 55-year-old white guys at the local billiard hall in any Stateside suburb's strip mall. Her Myspace page lists her booking agents as influences.

ZAC BROWN BAND
When Live Nation finalized its 360 deal with Jay-Z in April, these fiddle-proficient Georgia Southern-rock road dogs got nationwide off-the-record press, in The New York Times on down, as an example of a developing act the touring giant might also be negotiating with. Not sure where that stands now, but Zac and band checked into Hot Country Songs at No. 59 last week with a jaunty midtempo choogler called "Chicken Fried," about what tastes real good with beer on Friday nights, and why soldiers overseas might miss it. The song on their MySpace that rhymes "cocaine" with "Spokane" sounds like Jackson Browne; the one sung from the point of view of a divorced dad riding Highway 20 back to his kid sounds like Jim Croce. All of which suggests their self-stated "hybrid of rock, soul, country, bluegrass and reggae" adds up to '70s singer-songwriter music.

ICED EARTH
Genuine Viking non-hipster weightlifter power-opera metal in '70s denim and facial hair from the frozen tundras of Indiana, bizarrely entering the physical-disc-oriented Hot Singles Sales chart at a whopping No. 3 last week for "I Walk Alone," cool! A rundown of what some of their countless record covers look like: Iced Earth (1991)—angel falling from heaven; Night of the Stormrider (1992)—scary dude with hatchet riding horse of the apocalypse; Burnt Offerings (1995)—reclining demon surveying molten lava of Hades; Days of Purgatory (1997)—buxom dragon lady having an argument with an even more buxom bat lady; Something Wicked This Way Comes (1998)—fake Iron Maiden mascot unleashes two hellhounds while brandishing branding iron; The Reckoning (2004)— zombie Revolutionary War heroes wave reptiled Don't Tread On Me flag; The Glorious Burden (2004)—kickass Civil War battlefield scene with blues and greys killing and dying in equal measure; Gettysburg (1863) DVD (2005)—tasteful montage of historic white men in beards and mustaches; I Walk Among You EP (2008)—concentric circle thingamajig bounded by pyramid doo-hickeys in the corner. Iced Earth are also fond of Gregorian chants, and they've shared members with Judas Priest and Howard Stern.

BOY 8 BIT
I'm not sure whether this South London-based "young man who makes his records on a computer" technically plays so-called "8 Bit Music" ("a style of electronic music inspired by old computer consoles from the 8 bit era of video games," according to Wikipedia). But if he does, does that make him the first 8-bitter to chart in the U.S., now that his "The Suspense is Killing Me"—which mainly sounds like, er, blips and bleeps and stuff—entered the (again, physical-product-geared) Hot Singles Sales chart at No. 39 last week? No idea, and either way, there is no picture of him on his MySpace. But oh yeah, along with Daft Punk (which is moderately audible) and Ennio Morricone and Wu Tang and a zillion other people (including lots of metal bands), he does indeed list "'80s arcade game music" as an influence. What a loser! Just kidding. I'm sure he's just fine. Especially since his page also links to classic videos for '80s hits by Rainbow, Mr. Mister, Moody Blues, Foreigner, and Chicago, at least a couple of which songs aren't horrible. And because of this smart tidbit on his page as well: "Also in the News: Our Neanderthal ancestors may have been redheads." A clue to Boy 8 Bit's own appearance, perhaps?

THE MEDIC DROID
You go to their MySpace and there's this giant picture of some anorexic girl who also seems to be the one on the cover of What's Your Medium, an album that made a one-week-only appearance on last week's Heatseekers chart at No. 33—an opening owed at least in part, one suspects, to its availability for $6.99 on iTunes. Included in that price, we're told, is an "exclusive bonus track" called "Sho-Fer," not to be confused with the streamable MySpace track "Fer Sure," which sounds pretty much the same as the other electro-goth hermaphrocore tracks on the page except it's got a little nasal geek-robot rap at the start that goes "fer sure maybe/fer sure not/fer sure eh/fer sher bomb." Whatever the heck that means; the opening to the Sweet's "Ballroom Blitz" 33 years ago was just as fruity and about a million times more clever. But a couple different vids on YouTube, including a slightly entertaining one from some long-haired and short-haired guy who seem to be fans, precede even the rap with a voice lisping over the phone: "Hey Boo how are you? Oh my God, I miss you so much! How'd you been? We should hang out sometime. MySpace me fer sher...." And then stuff that may or may not be libelous about a drag-queenish "Internet celebrity" named Jeffree Star, then stuff about drugs on the dashboard and instructions to "kick off your stilettos and fuck me in the backseat," and stuff about the dropping of both beats and panties. Anyway, the under-nourished girl apparently isn't in the band, which comprises three guys from Phoenix. Who pretty much stink, though maybe less so in the self-promotion department.

FUNKERMAN
Disappointingly, this Dutch self-proclaimed "house/house/house" superhero does not wear a cape with a big "F" on his chest. But he re-entered the Hot Dance Airplay chart at No. 25 last week anyway with a robotic-basslined, Princely falsettoed thing called "Speed Up" that never actually speeds up much. MySpace page comment, from Don: "You need to change your layout, it looks boring!" Even better one, from Audrey: "I look forward to being July 5th, to intend you to mix to the Bliss, I like very much your productions and your remixs.... But we see each other on July 5th, I am a part of some staff I would pay you a lool glass A soon!!!" As well she should.

REHAB
"Sittin' At A Bar (Bartender Song)," a comfy honky-tonk hip-hop lament by this biracial Atlanta band about breaking parole and drunkenly crashing your pill-addict lady friend's car in the trailer park, somehow entered the Modern Rock chart at No. 36 this week—even though it originally appeared on their debut album Southern Discomfort eight years ago, when a cross between Sublime, Kid Rock, and Fun Lovin' Criminals didn't seem like such a quaint proposition. (In another song, they declared female armpit hair an attractive attribute.) Now there's a "video blast" for program directors where good-old-boy-looking bandmember Danny explains that the bar song "blew up on Internet and jukeboxes across the country" after being re-recorded in 2006, and recommends radio spin the Universal version, not the old Sony one, since Epic dropped the ball way back in 2002. Confusing!

PROZAK
In the great tradition of Boondox last column, yet more Insane Clown Posse-identified juggalo-rap: It's an epidemic or something! Tales From The Sick, which features a guy wearing a film projector for a hat on its cover, checks in at No. 8 on the Heatseekers chart this week. Songs on MySpace, including one with Tech N9ne, sound incredibly stiff and not particularly frightening even though Prozak lists Edgar Allen Poe, Alfred Hitchcock, Vincent Price, and Stephen King among his influences. A copy-control talkover on one track indicates he comes from Saginaw, Michigan, which Lefty Frizzell did an excellent song about once. Perhaps Prozak's dad was a hard-working Saginaw fisherman, too.

SHAI HULUD
Extreme mosh-metal tantrum horseshit from Poughkeepsie, previously famous for being the town whose name one of the lawyers on Ally McBeal used to recite to keep from stuttering. But Shai Hulud, who also call Pompano Beach home sometimes, are said to have taken their name from some sandworms in Dune instead. Their Misanthropy Pure popped into Heatseekers at No. 12 last week, but it takes five seconds watching the title track's video or listening to any song on their merch-loaded MySpace to realize their competent guitars would sound better without some musclehead oaf puking out nonsense upfront. From hulud.com: "Kindly excuse us while we hate the world, its inhabitants, and their possessions." If they despise people so much, here's hoping people return the favor.

THE CHESTNUT BROTHERS
No people-hate here: Old-school soul from a Philly duo with roots in South Carolina, and embraced by the Christian-pop community for very good reasons. Physical copies of their smoothly percolating Grover Washington Jr. collaboration "Whole Lotta You In Me" re-entered the Hot Singles Sales chart at No. 43 last week; does any other chart hit this year contain the word "fruition"? Their other songs, sometimes tinged in hip-hop and reggae and gospel and jazz and frequently focused on stopping violence even when that's not their actual title, have been used by homeless organizations, children's crisis centers, safe street groups, and the Million Mom March, and can be heard in YouTube videos dedicated to the Jena 6 and shooting victims at Virginia Tech. I suspect they deserve our respect.

THE BROTHERS CAZIMERO
Another smiling sibling twosome, this one playing frustratingly genteel, almost light-operatic, Hawaiian tourist music. They've been around for three decades, and last week entered Heatseekers at No. 37 with Destiny. Their MySpace friend Lana, who on her own page brags about her "natural chest" while blasting Nick Gilder's "Hot Child In The City," ranks them among "my favorite of all favorites," and "the upper echelon of Hawaiian music." YouTube has a video where they're performing live at Carnegie Hall, and though they give good-humored Hawaiian etiquette lessons and fans and band alike wear leis that were supposedly strung backstage before the concert, there sadly doesn't seem to be much hula-dancing going on. Best part of the video's narration: "6 p.m., two hours before showtime. The house is nearly sold out, despite the fact many New Yorkers thought these were the Brothers Karamazov, a Russian juggling act."

BOONDOX
The name reminded me of Rednex (not to mention country classics by Billy Joe Royal and Little Big Town), so I had my hopes up; album title Krimson Creek—which checked in at the Heatseekers chart's pinnacle last week and this week slips to No. 11—seemed "Cotton-Eye Joe"-worthy as well. And where there's Krimson Creek, there's Krimson Tide, right? But nope, the act's MySpace page turns your mouse cursor into a meat cleaver, and Boondox appears to be a white rapper with a horror movie mask and jack-o-lantern T-shirt and chainsaw, and his songs "Sippin'" and "It Ain't A Thing" are hillbilly-drawled square-dance moonshine hick-hop hackery midway between Bubba Sparxx and Cowboy Troy except more stupidly obscene and seemingly trying to be more legend-of-wooley-swamp spooky. (An outdated page even reveals he used to call himself Boondox The Skar Crow.) The music two-steps OK if you're as much a sucker for country rap as I am, and if you only half attend to the words; Boondox is the new Haystack, at least, and cow and chicken sound effects prove he knows his farm animals. But even though he's apparently from Georgia, his pumpkinhead makeup suggests an Insane Clown Posse connection (they did a "Chicken Huntin" song once themselves) and sure enough, I.C.P. and Twiztid are his top MySpace friends, and plenty of commenters send him that "Juggalo love." How sweet of them.

GRAVE PLOTT
So did Halloween come early this year, or what? Friends of several more folks clad in ICP-style costumes, this rap duo represents Montana, because if they don't, who will? They play the Shrine Auditorium in Billings June 27, and Quinbiana Jones tells them "you guys are dope shit...your show in Great Falls, MT, was insane!" Sound more dime-a-dozen than Boondox, and less self-consciously scary, though they do threaten to steal your Kool-Aid in one song. Plott Thickens debuts on Heatseekers at No. 62 this week.

ENVY
A song called "Ringtone" has been flitting on and off the physical-product-oriented Hot Singles Sales chart for the past month or two—this week, it's at No. 33—and I wasn't sure if the listing was a mistake. It's not an easy title to Google; YouTube, for instance, has a clip of a rapper named Young Envy discussing "the haters and the ringtone," and there's also a teen rapper on MySpace who calls himself EnvyAtlantaTM who's worked with Pastor Troy. I'm pretty sure some song called "Envy" out there has its own ringtone, too. But this particular Envy—real name Emmanuel Duncan—has a somewhat T-Pain-like vocoder-r&b ditty about a ringtone, and the song may or may not be a ringtone itself (its keyboard hook could readily lend itself to that purpose). "We gotta stay connected like a Bluetooth," Envy insists at one point, not to mention sundry stuff about other gadgets. It finally entered the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart at No. 87 last week, then fell off again. Envy's page doesn't seem to specify which city he calls home, though "design by Yawnz of Tracklanta" might be a clue. Atlanta seems a very envious place.


ALI DEE AND THE DEEKOMPRESSORS
Speaking of Hot Singles Sales, this either "hip-hop" or "techno/pop" (depending on which barely visited MySpace page you believe) entity's version of "Go Speed Racer Go" entered that chart at No. 7 last week and this week hangs tough at No. 10. The Web also seems confused as to whether the group comes from Arizona, Alabama, Germany, or none of the above; given how the boy and girl in the song sound like Technotronic fans and seem to rap bilingually at one point, I pick Germany. Or Belgium. Or somewhere. I also pick "hip-house." The clip on YouTube, not surprisingly, is mainly a movie trailer. Vinyl copies on Amazon are selling for much higher prices than CD copies. Do even eight-year-old boys have turntables now? Suggested follow-up: A cover of Big Black's "Racer X."

CINEMATIC SUNRISE
I was hoping that A Coloring Storybook And Long Playing Record EP was an actual coloring book with a record attached for little kids (the equation of "long playing record" with "EP" seemed just contradictory enough to be accidental), but sadly Cinematic Sunrise turn out to be a weepy quintet of pencil-necked pop-punk pretty boys from Michigan, a Chiodos spinoff beloved mostly by teenage girls. Their record is this week's No. 46 Heatseeker after debuting at No. 8 last week, and it has a panda and a hippo (among other less interesting mammals) on its cover. And apparently you really do get a coloring book with it—though I'm pretty sure you have to provide your own crayons.

IN EXTREMO
Man, I bought a used CD at Princeton Record Exchange by these East Germans a few years ago, because how the hell do you pass up something called Die Verrückten Sind In Der Stadt for $2.99, especially when so many of the band members play these bizarre centuries-old-looking handmade instruments called dudelsaks that suggest a wooden cat statue honked liked bagpipes (three of those in the band!), or drumscheits that suggest a cross between a giant wooden metronome and an obelisk bowed like a violin, plus the musicians either all go shirtless or dress in fancy red robes like some heathen forest priest, except on the actual CD cover where they're being much sillier, and the widely grinning drummer is about to stomp the family dog with his clown-sized tennis shoes, and the midget pipes-or-whatever guy next to him has on a top hat? Well worth the price, too, though I never figured out what to call the ritualistic music In Extremo played, or whether they had any fans then. Well, apparently they do now. The album I bought actually came out in 1998, but last week their new one, Saengerkreig, entered both the German album chart at No. 1 and the overall European album chart at No. 6; one week in, it's still at No. 28 on the latter. Who the often extremely beautiful alleged "folk rock" on their MySpace pages mostly sounds like to my ears—even more than the excellent Scandinavian-and-otherwise folk-metal bands who just barnstormed through America on the recent Paganfest tour—is Rammstein, albeit a significantly more Uilleann and less industrial version. Rammstein themselves have been sounding more folkish lately, though, and at least one In Extremo photo shows them breathing fire. So I bet their audiences overlap, even though Wikipedia explains that they mainly metalize "traditional/medieval ballads" in languages such as Icelandic, Hebrew, Gothic, Latin, and Old High German. More good news: On Last.fm's "Pagans Against Fascism" page, they are the eighth most popular band (behind Ensiferum, Finntroll, Korpiklaani, Eluveite, Moonsorrow, Aman Amarth, and Equilibrium.) That's a relief.


BAP
Speaking of German bands who've been around forever, I used to stumble across BAP LPs in record stores in Frankfurt and Bad Kreuznach all the time when the U.S. Army stationed me there in the '80s, but I never gave a minute of thought to them, until now. Their curiously named new album Radio Pandora-which probably has nothing to do with the Genome Music Projected web radio network of a similar name—debuted at No. 7 on the European album chart this week, so I decided to poke around on the Internet. Can't find a MySpace page, though Wikipedia tells me they've been around since 1976, and "nearly all of BAP's lyrics are written in Kölsch, the dialect of Kologne," their home city. Cool! Wolfgang Niedecken, a visual artist, is their only remaining original member. Youtube has several clips of BAP performing an appropriately downbeat number called "Kristalnaach," though "Unger Krahnebaume" is a whole lot more catchy if you ask me.

RUNRIG
Year of the Flood: Live at Loch Ness by these Scottish folk-rockers entered Denmark's album chart at No. 4 last week, but their not-very-updated MySpace page still says their "new" album is 2007's Everything Thing You See, which apparently went No. 1 in Denmark, and a picture of it shows a guy playing field hockey on the cover. Confusing, but who cares—they recorded an album live at Loch Ness! How bloody cool is that? I wonder if they saw the monster! (Though Plesiosaurus or no, how advisable is it to record at a loch in a flood year? Just a thought.) Anyway, said cryptozooligists have been around for a while; Wikipedia says they formed in 1973, and their lineup once featured a future member of Parliament for the "centre-left" Scottish National Party who previously used to play in Big Country—and actually, the excellent "Clash of the Ash" on the band's MySpace gloriously rocks the pub in a fraternal Big Country meets Graham Parker meets Richard Thompson meets Clash meets Ash manner, with manly working-on-chain-gang grunts punctuating exhortations about "For every fighting highland man/Stand by your brother, die for the clan." Dropkick Murphys should totally cover it, and I could imagine it on Rescue Me in a bar scene following a firefight. The video, naturally, features yet more field hockey. More trivia from the band's Wiki entry: Runrig hit No. 86 in the U.K. with a song called "Loch Lomond" in 1983, then went No. 9 in the U.K. last year with a new version of the song featuring the Tartan Army. So maybe they just like lochs a lot.

LOS CARDENALES DE NUEVO LEÓN Y DINORA
Like the far less lengthily monikered Runrig, these veterans employ accordion for middle-aged drinking men and women to shake their hips to. But rather than jigs, Los Cardenales fill the dancefloor with highly mustachioed and cowboy-hatted midtempo cantina polkas. They formed as a "traditional norteño fivesome" in Monterrey in 1982, explains Ramiro Burr in his Billboard Guide To Tejano and Regional Mexican Music. Their logo features an actual redbird, just like St. Louis' baseball team, and their "Flor De Las Flores" holds tight at No. 42 on Hot Latin Songs after entering at No. 39 last week. In a strangely minimalist video, somebody's car radio plays the song while driving in the rain on what may or may not be the Jersey Turnpike, so we get to look out the windshield, and watch both plenty of traffic—mostly headed in the other direction—and the windshield wipers. Also, Los Cardenales' MySpace friend George put some "You Know You're Mexican If..." jokes on their page, such as: "You have ever been hit by a chancla"; "You can play any sport wearing your chanclas"; "You know a Chola known as L.A. Shy Girl who is loud and obnoxious", "You not only know who Don Francisco is, but you tell people he's your Tio." Some of those are probably funny!

MAINO
Brooklyn MC briefly hit No. 98 on R&B/Hip-Hop Songs last week with "Hi Hater": a dinky, burbling electrobeat under a vocal that manages to accentuate the rhythm despite its typically monotonous hardness. Rhymes "dollar bill y'all" with "lotta bills y'all"—boy, a lot of thought went into that one. Might be interesting if it was about paying bills, but if it is, he never expands on the thought. Plus he says "bitch and "motherfucker" a whole lot. His second MySpace song has him keeping it gangsta since the side of his face has been cut by a razor, with guest spots by Lil Kim and Busta Rhymes, both sounding every bit as tedious as usual. A snippet from "All In Need," Maino's token sensitive number: "What I need is my dogs to trust me/A good dog who likes to suck me/And I don't care if the bitch is ugly." Why does crap like this still exist? Strange MySpace comment from That Diamond Diva Girl: "Hey MAINO, I just bought you as my pet. Click here to find out how much I think you're worth." I didn't, but then I'm a hater.


WALLS OF JERICHO
Female-fronted and fairly well-played "Hardcore/Metal/Rock" from Detroit, with a name and album titles (With Devils Amongst Us All, From Hell, etc.) that suggest some nutty hybrid of Satanism, Christianity, and Palestinian history. Their new one, an acoustic EP called Redemption, entered Heatseekers at No. 49 last week, assisted at least in part by its $5.99 retail price; this week, it slips 99 places, to 148. Ozzfest and Family Values tour spots and a connection with Slipknot/Stone Sour dude Corey Taylor, who produced the new release and sings a duet on it, probably haven't hurt. Also, their bassist is reportedly a well-known straightedge tattoo artist, and they're real globe-trotters: June gigs scheduled in Indonesia and Singapore; an imminent DVD of live performances from South America; MySpace comments this month from fans in Japan and Sweden and Antarctica—hey, anything to get out of Detroit, right? What's most impressive about their "A Trigger Full of Promises" video, though, isn't so much how feral and enraged Candace Kusculain's by-the-book moshpit tantrum sounds as how normal she looks.

PURENRG
Certain concerned readers always start whining whenever I include Christian acts on this countdown, as if Christian pop doesn't deserve to made fun of just as much as every other genre (and as if I always make fun of it anyway), but I can't let that scare me away. PureNRG is made up of a 15-year-old boy, 13-year-old girl, and 12-year-old girl from Nashville whose Here We Go Again bounced onto the Christian album chart at No. 4 last week, though this week it tumbles to No. 28. Their MySpace page lists their only "influence" as Jump5, which I sure hope doesn't cause kids at Jordan Yates' high school to tease him. But even if they do, he might not mind—plenty of girls who write YouTube comments clearly think he's "soooo hot =D" regardless. PureNRG's jumpy CD cover really does resemble the cover of Jump5's 2001 debut, but what it looks even more like is the cover of B*Witched's far preferable debut from 1998. "Here We Go Again" has the kind of bubblegum funk-rock riffs and sunshine-pop bah-bah-bahs that have enlivened teen-pop since the Osmonds and Partridge Family, and the trio also cover "Footloose," from a movie that I guarantee somebody somewhere still believes is anti-Christian. "What If" is about how, with Jesus' love, you can grow up to be a fashion model or Super Bowl quarterback or cheerleader or discover the cure for cancer. Here's a fan called NADteam, commenting on a YouTube video: "At church, the class I'm in has to pay 10 cents for using a euphemism, such as 'heck'"... I was mostly saying gee and geez cause I have been raised not to say gosh." Which is kind of weird, since PureNRG also have a MySpace friend known as "Tex ASS." A sign of the mobile times, from MySpace pal Kay-Kay: "I got your album the 1st day it came out and immeadiatly put it on my phone and I listen to it consantly, it's amazing." Hey, I have nothing against Christian pop, I swear on a stack of King James bibles. But I definitely have something against people who listen to albums on phones.


THE MORMON TABERNACLE CHOIR
Nothing I say about Salt Lake City's 161-year-old-and-counting vocal ensemble is going to change your opinion about them, assuming you have one (I don't, personally), so here are some raw facts instead: (1) Their new album Called To Serve scanned more than 4,100 copies this week, enough to let it check in at No. 181 on the Billboard 200. (2) "In total they have appeared and sang at 13 world fair expositions. Five of the choir's recordings quickly reached 'gold' and 'platinum' record status. The most popular being of 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic' that was released in 1959. No other choir can compare in contrast with that of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. The 360 members represent a very different array of professions." (3) As of Thursday, they had 864 friends on their MySpace page, including "Negateevo," "FemaleDorito," "im 18 yeah," 97-year-old "Gordon B. Hinckley" (who also lists Vivaldi, Clay Aiken, and Orrin Hatch among his favorite music), and "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints." (4) Their music is also available on Last.fm. (5) "It truly is a God given gift to have such an amazing choir on the face of the earth."

COCOA TEA
A cheerful rallying cry by this 49-year-old hit No. 40 on last week's Hot Singles Sales chart and is reportedly even more popular in Kenya; on his MySpace page he spells it "Barak Obamaha." He also lists, among his influences, "the gerat bob Marley," "gregorey issacc," "sam cook," and "stevee wonder," and appears somewhat ambivalent about the spelling of his own name as well, but so what, I can't spell in Jamaican either. An entertaining morsel from his bio: "...the 5feet 5inches rasta man who after not making it big from his first recording decide to try his hand at horse riding went to caymanas park race track where he started learning the rigors of being a jockey,but after been disloged several times by a horse called sovering set and been told to remount again after bleeding from wounds that was cause by the spills he recieved, started having second thaughts about his ability to master the trade,he went home deciding to try another occupation so he started learning to ply his trade on the high seas, his time spent learning to fish was historic and event full but all in all he had a good time doing so and never regret a moment of it because he develope the art of writing a song and kept working hard at prparing himself for the chance of getting to record a song again so he went to every dance..." And the rest is history. Both the video for "Barack Obama" and the song "Keep On Dancing" on his MySpace demonstate that Cocoa Tea has no lack of goofy sidekicks even more Flavor Flav than himself. Among the incisive political wisdom he imparts: "This is not Hillary Clinton/And it is not John McCain/ It is not Chuck Norris/And I know it's not John Wayne." Another verse advocates uniting races, including "the Japanese and all the Chiney man." Though he does promise at one point to "paint the White House black," a sentiment George Clinton will probably still appreciate.



GERALD VEASLEY
The cover of his current album Make Your Move suggests that this Philadelphia "Nu-Jazz/Funk/Jazz" bassist and apparent longtime fusion veteran may well play a mean, albeit well-mannered, game of chess—possibly even including castling and everything! Of the six tunes on his MySpace page, "Thank You" is by far the funkiest seeing how it's a cover of a famous Sly Stone song, and "Three Tears" the most melodically Bacharach/David-like. But oddly the page does not include "Slip N Slide," which has nothing to do with Trick Daddy's record label but which entered the Smooth Jazz Songs chart at No. 30 last week regardless. MySpace pal Elle claims the tune has a "nice little 'twang'" to it. Longo III is even more excited: "holy cow!! you have a myspace!? this is awsome! your camp this year was the bomb diggity!!! i'm looking foreward to next year as long as i'm not going to iraq!! The "camp" would seem to be Gerarld's "Bass Bootcamp" in Reading, Pa., which features dogtags of its own.

LETTUCE
More funky jazz funk! And their brand-new album—this week's No. 115 Heatseeker—is called Rage! Which is weird, because lettuce is just about the least raging vegetable ever. Maybe they're Raging Against the Rabbits. Or the Vegans. Oh wait, here's an explanation, from bassist Erick "E.D." Coomes: "We called the record Rage! because that's what we do. We're ragers and that's how we got started ... by raging." So there you go. Based in the Big Apple, they have either seven or eight members depending which part of their MySpace you believe. Like Gerald Veasley, they cover a '70s funk classic—in Lettuce's case, Curtis Mayfield's "Move On Up," with Dwele competently adding falsetto soul vocals. I also like the photo where the long-haired-and-bearded member named Jesus is shown praying.

DEBBIE ROCKER
The Debster, whose spiritually titled Pedometer Plus: Intermediate Level re-entered the New Age album chart at No. 14 last week, has a "passion for changing people's lives, not just their bodies," her WALKVEST®'s web page claims. Among those celebrities whose lives-not-just-bodies the NYC-born/L.A.-bred world-record cyclist has assisted: Ellen Barkin, Valerie Bertinelli, Rachel Hunter, and Rod Stewart, plus countless more whose names I don't recognize, probably because I wasn't paying attention. What exactly this has to do with Debbie's undoubtedly rocking if undeniably pedestrian music, if she has any, is not exactly clear, though if you search her CD title on Amazon you'll find it associated with a certain "Walking Fit Kit." YouTube videos, for their part, deal with "cardio endurance." Suggested cover versions: "I Walk The Line," "Walk Don't Run," "Walk This Way."



THE WHITE TIE AFFAIR
Hey fellas, wouldn't naming our album Walk This Way invite damning comparisons to Aerosmith and Run-D.M.C. and Debbie Rocker? Well, maybe not if we put a shapely pair of lady's legs with yellow Converse high-tops on the cover! Great idea! And how about if we wear ties on our MySpace page, but not white ones? That'll confuse 'em! Also, how about if we include lots of "widgets"; you've heard of those, right? Like, we could have a teensy little chat room with scintillating dialogue such as: "sulman_lateef: hello / sulman_lateef: how are you all / sulman_lateef: any body there / mehran: hi / sulman_lateef: asl / rajpans7: hi"! And we could sell a "White Tie Affair Bundle," featuring our No. 44 Heatseeker-this-week album, an "instant download of the smash single 'Mr. Right,'" an "awesome slim fit T-shirt," and "TWTA knock arounds," all for $17.99, for a limited time only! I don't know what "knock arounds" are, but we'll put a picture of sunglasses there, just in case! Maybe nobody will even realize that we're sick-and-tired-of-being-sick-and-tired (as we whimper in our lead MySpace track) emo-with-synth wimps from Chicago! As of Wednesday, at least 38 of the 50 comments visible on our MySpace page came from girls! That's 76 per cent! How dreamy of us!

DESTROY THE RUNNER
The title of their album—Heatseeker No. 25 last week and No. 144 this week—is I, Lucifer, clearly a lie since the devil would never whine like a bootlicking Clear Channel screamo mollycoddle, and nor would he think it clever to identify his genre as "Experimental/ Metal/Reggaeton" on his MySpace page. Also, Bob Seger already told us he was Lucifer, way back in 1970. (Amazing song. Reached No. 84 in the Hot 100; did better in Detroit.) Interesting, though, that one of this San Diego band's MySpace friends is named Adam, possibly of Garden of Eden temptation fame: "Great album, guys. Screw the haters, they don't understand that bands change and evolve." A friend calling himself matronmali celtim begs to differ: "Ahh, disappointment at its finest. You won't be seeing me at any of your shows." Now Brvce: "I love love love love the new cd but not in a gay way." Mark, for his part, gets specific about the music's evolution: "from a kind of generic sounding rock/screamo band to something I had no clue as to what to compare it to." Me neither!

ARSIS
Cover art on We Are The Nightmare features two goop-drippingly horned hobgoblins from the black lagoon sticking their skinny fingered tentacles into some poor bald sap's mouth, all surrounded with seaweed; the album entered Heetseekers at No. 22 last week, and slips to No. 56 a week later. The band's logo is sneakily constructed to resemble a palindrome, even though it isn't one. Music—"melodic death metal" from Virginia—thrashes in a tolerably wankful way until the singer starts barfing. Opening seconds of title track and intermittent instrumental interludes thereafter demonstrate that Arsis conform to the decades-old tradition of extreme metal bands being more skilled at being beautiful than being noisy. Best song title on MySpace: "Lust Before the Maggots Conquer," because once they conquer, who'll have time for lust, right? Comment from Black Johnny, about their DVD: "Great shit. Who was the guy with the box on his head running in the field? Who ever that was is my hero. Have fun with your wine ha ha."

MANSHOW
Okay, this is confusing. "Dorthe-Rap" by Manshow supposedly entered Norway's Digital Songs countdown at No. 10 last week, but what the videos below make clear is that "Manshow" is a program on Norwegian TV, and "Dorthe-Rap" means a rap by "Dorthe Skappel, rapper," who has long blond hair, a "rock'n'roll" tattoo on her arm, a posse that ineptly attempts scary "hip-hop moves" behind her, a baseball bat with which she terrorizes a wall of VIPs' photos, and a crotch that she grabs right when some Norwegian swear word gets bleeped—even though her English swear words repeatedly don't, and neither does the part where she clearly yells "drive-by shooting" while one of her posse pals fires off a round. The actual name of the song appears to be "Fuck TV 2," the station that apparently airs The Man Show. Adjust the bass and let the Alpine blast.

DOPEMAN
"The godfather of Hungarian gangsta music" entered Hungary's album chart at Numero Uno last week with Az Eredeti Gengszter, and on his MySpace page he raps in at least two languages. His Hungarian "A StriciTanc"—which suggests a cross between Eugene Hutz and Falco rhyming amid movie soundtrack orchestrations and a rock guitar solo and women moaning lustfully in the background—sounds considerably more original than his English "Streetz of Rage," where he brags about stacking cheese. "Born and raised in the 8th District of Budapest (the G.E.T.O.)," he's bald, he's got several gold records, and he enjoys jazz, N.W.A., and weightlifting. His video also includes naked breasts.

Dopeman [MySpace]

SOMEONE STILL LOVES YOU BORIS YELTSIN
At least three other bands on MySpace are named Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin (indie/experimental/bluegrass from Yugoslavia, death metal from Mission Viejo, indie from San Jose), though it's possible those are joke pages. The real one, apparently—the one whose Pershing is this week's No. 39 Heatseeker—consists of three dime-and-dozen pocket-protector indie "pop"-playing twerps from Springfield, Mo. "Influences: pony and moody. Sounds like: pony and moody." Best MySpace comment: "The Johnny Apple-Weed Revolution asks that you no longer throw your seeds from your old bags in your ash-trays or garbage cans, instead, the Johnny Apple-Weed Revolution recommends that you begin to randomly plant your seeds in random places throughout your town or city and surrounding areas. Don't be noticed, just be casual! Don't monitor their growth, let Mother Nature take control! Spring time is here, so now is the time! If we all start planting our seeds randomly now, they will be ready for harvest by October and will be readily available for FREE !" Second best comment comes from band fan Lauryl: "So, just read the review on pitchfork. Ian Cohen is a schmo." And maybe he is. But if the songs on their MySpace are any indication, the 6.2 Ian gave them makes him a generous schmo, at least.

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin [MySpace]

THE GROUCH
This beatmaking-turned-rapping associate of Oakland's veteran undie Zion 1 crew has a nerdy flow perched somewhere between Slug and Cowboy Troy, and also does not reside in a trash can. Instead, he brags in one song, he's "got a laid back style but I like to floss it/Vans and tux inside my closet," plus his wife has "an L.A. face and a Oakland booty": Sir Mix-a-Lot nostalgia, about time. In the potential novelty hit that serves as his anti-backpack mission statement, Mr. Grouch complains that those listening might erroneously think they're "artier" than him for the following reasons: "'cause you got sideburns and a vintage T," "cause you chop up breaks and you dig in the crates," "'cause you speak real soft and drink chai tea," "'cause you drive a hybrid and carpool with three," "'cause you shop at Whole Foods in open-toe shoes," and best of all, 'cause "you just a trendy lesbian dreadlock thespian." And oh yeah, a vegan, too. Here's his pitch on YouTube: "Help to spread the ARTSY movement. To bask in the full ARTSYNESS of ARTSY please buy high res video from Itunes." Strangely, I find all of this more amusing than annoying. The Grouch—whose Show You The World entered Heatseekers at No. 31 this week—seems friendly enough, not really grouchy at all. He says he's not weird, he's honest. And he also apparently has a song about yard work. Who was the last rapper with one of those, Kid Rock?

The Grouch [MySpace]

EL CHIVO
Slow, insistent Spanish-language rapping and singing by an artist from Milwaukee, of all places, with an eerie vibrato chorus that catches some of the gothic Catholic feel of '90s Mexican rock. His Cicatrices entered the Top Latin Albums chart at No. 34 last week, and this week tumbles to 85 from 49 on the Heatseekers tally. In one photo on El Chivo's MySpace page, he's lighting a tall candle with the Virgin Mary on it; in another, he's got a pitbull. The video for "Si Se Puede" opens with some gringo fat-ass wearing a "Deport Pedro" T-shirt, standing at a podium ranting about immigrants invading the country, taking away jobs; another fat-ass in the audience has a shirt with "Speak English" on it. Looks like a union meeting: blue-collar guys getting bitter, clinging to antipathy to people who aren't like them. Then the Hispanic janitor knocks on the door, so he can mop up. Then women and children walk up a tall staircase, Escher-style. Then street scenes: cars with "America for Americans" bumper stickers, kids with "Born in the U.S.A.: Don't take my mommy and daddy away" T-shirts. Then, according to the English subtitled version on youtube, lyrics about families being torn apart. Chorus translates as: "For one cause, and the same reason, altogether yes we can!" And yeah: Obama's folks are taking the song to heart, while racist know-nothings post asinine YouTube comments.

El Chivo [MySpace]

TOO SLIM AND THE TAIL DRAGGERS
"Whiskey blues with a Southern rock beer chaser"; yeah, I'm totally the target demographic for this one. But with that description, not to mention the cowboy hat and the quite dapper and multiflowered cowboy shirt that I am hereby envious of, I gotta say it's a surprise these well-fed Seattlites' The Fortune Teller re-entered at No. 15 on the Blues Album chart last week rather than the lower reaches of the country charts, which are fairly accommodating to Southern rock these days. "Tim 'Too Slim' Langford and his band fall into whatever category a combination of Tom Petty, Creedence and ZZ Top would create," they tell us; well, usually these days that category calls itself "country." They even have the obligatory c&w imperialist-vacation-in-Mexico song! First MySpace selection, "The Fortune Teller," is a clue as to why they don't chart country, though; the singer (Too Slim I guess) (who is really not all that slim, as far as I can see) has a merely competent voice—gruff in a limited way—and the song drags its tail more than Flynnville Train or Montgomery Gentry tend to. YouTube videos show the band as a trio, but their MySpace suggests they only have two guys now. Second song starts out better, swiping a raunch riff and some wobbly funk from ZZ Top's "Just Got Paid," though the vocals still aren't quite there. "I'm way past 30 and I'm gettin' tired/I got nothin' to show for my ramblin' life/But a few grey hairs and a achin' liver," Too Slim tells us in "Cowboy Boot." Better guitars than melodies, across the board, but fuck it, I still like these guys. You wouldn't, probably, but what the hell do you know? The gigs they're playing in 2008 have by far the best names of any Next Little Things band yet: The Wild Buffalo House of Music, Jazzbones, Zoo Bar, Omaha Blues Cruise, The Slippery Noodle, Jacksons Sports Bar and Grill, Sunbanks Motorcycle Rally, Washington Brewers Festival, Barley Bash, Antlers Pub, Pig Out in the Park, Majalaki Golf Club, The Recycling Foundation Annual Fund Raising Halloween Party... not to mention the all-important Private Event. And they market their own marinade ("a savory blend of subtle mouthwatering spices") and include what looks like an excellent beef stroganoff recipe on the sauce's Web page. (Special ingredient: Nutmeg!)

Too Slim And The Tail Draggers [MySpace]

THE WOOD BROTHERS
More blues, supposedly, but not the stroganoff kind. The Wood Brothers are Oliver Wood and Chris Wood, based in "Atlanta to NYC." One fan hears Van Morrison in their voices, which isn't nuts if you listen for it, but I'm hearing more Jackson Browne. Their Loaded album, not to be confused with the Velvet Underground, entered the Heatseekers chart at No. 29 last week and slips to No. 70 a week later. They play cafes and music halls, not sports bars and bike rallies. They're backed by Blue Note and boosted by NPR and bolstered by Bonnaroo. One look at the polite testimonials on MySpace demonstrates that they appeal to mature, discerning audiences who care about real music. And stuff.

The Wood Brothers [MySpace]

DEMON HUNTER
Album title: Storm the Gates Of Hell, a smart place to storm if hunting demons is your military objective. Not-as-extreme-as-it-thinks-it-is metal from Seattle. A devil-goat's skull is on the album cover, and at last count 21 friends pictured on the band's MySpace were using some variation of the logo as a tattoo, mostly on their left shoulders. Last week the album re-entered the bottom of the Top Christian Albums chart, where it now stands at No. 43, and its title track does indeed beat Beelzebub with a baseball bat (the singer is even bearable). But the next few songs on Demon Hunter's MySpace get too good-cop/bad-cop whiney for my heathen tastes. "SOMETIMES HOLY THINGS SOUND DIFFERENT THAT PEOPLE MAY THINK", Stevie G observes in the comments section. "God bless you!" But in heaven, nobody can hear you sneeze.

Demon Hunter [MySpace]

GUILTY SIMPSON
Not sure what he's guilty of, but he's from Detroit, always a rare and interesting place for rappers who don't happen to be Caucasian to come from, and Ode To The Ghetto is this week's No. 23 Heatseeker even though it's apparently (according to one MySpace comment) hard to find in Chicago. In "Get Riches" he says he's "banging that jungle music" (also listed as one of his MySpace genres), but he doesn't sound British. Nice old-school soul and reggae and Middle Eastern samples, though. I like his jacket with all the geometric G's on it in his video, and how his buddies are even bigger guys than he is, and how all the lyrics helpfully show up on the wall in case you didn't catch them: "I seen harder kids in a Chuck E. Cheese," for instance. Raps that he'd "rather take a swim with caiman," which is a small alligator-like reptile. Lists respectable influences: Kool G. Rap, Scarface, Big Daddy Kane, plus J Dilla is one of his best MySpace friends. Sounds as nutritious as spinach and peas, which helps explain why his album is on Stones Throw.

Guilty Simpson [MySpace]

R.I.P.
The song is "Keys 2 Da Chevy," last week's Hot Shot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs debut (at No. 72), not to mention last week's No. 6 on the Hot Singles Sales chart. Car-starting electro beats plus, in the video, two rappers in goofy sunglasses—though, as far as I can tell, R.I.P. is just one guy, from "Ca$vhille". There's clearly an imminent summer dance craze involved, which begins with putting keys into your ignition. Then "lean back, lean back like you're ridin' in the Chevy" to the levee but the levee was dry, maybe. Cute little kid in the vid, too. If this is top-down viral marketing by Chevrolet, I'm impressed.

keys to the chevy


G.L.U.W. Entertainment [MySpace]

SUGARLAND FEATURING LITTLE BIG TOWN & JAKE OWEN
OK, technically not newly charting artists, at least not when they're on their own—Little Big Town even made my favorite album last year. But they've never all charted together before, and this joint venture is just too weird to ignore: the ad-hoc act entered the Country Singles chart at No. 57 last week and inches up to No. 54 this week with a frolicsome live cover of sub-Smiths British jangle trio Dream Academy's gorgeously dreary and rainsoaked Dave Gilmour-produced new wave fop-folk hit "Life In A Northern Town" of all things, which went No. 7 pop in 1985 and nobody has given two minutes of thought to since. The same tourmates have also been encoring with Def Leppard's glam-rap "Pour Some Sugar On Me" of late, and both Sugarland and Taylor Swift have separately been doing "Irreplaceable," and Taylor's also been interpreting "Umbrella" and "Lose Yourself," but none of those redos have managed to chart. And Dream Academy aren't exactly Rihanna or Eminem. Isn't this song about, like, England? At least that's how I always heard it, possibly thanks to its video, which I've linked to below along with one for the new version. (Wikipedia says I'm right: "The lyrics are references to Tanworth-in-Arden [England] native Nick Drake, who died of an antidepressant overdose in 1974." Then the Wiki entry goes on to explain how Dream Academy were confused, and Tanworth-in-Arden was actually in the Midlands! None of which makes much sense to me, since the song clearly discusses the world freezing in 1963, with John F. Kennedy and the Beatles, but what the heck.) And what do Americans know about British geography, anyway? What's next for country: "West End Girls" by the Pet Shop Boys or "Smalltown Boy" by Bronski Beat? But Celtic folk is partly what country evolved out of in the first place, and Salvation Army bands play in Northern towns in the States, too. And the Ca$hville collaborators' harmonies and "hey ma-ma-ma-ma heeeeeyyy-yaaah"s do it justice, and I also approve of how they change "work" shutting down to the more specific "factories". Just in time for the recession.



CRYSTAL SHAWANDA
Crystal grew up on the Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve, on an island off the coast of Ontario, and her rich-voiced "You Can Let Go" snuck onto Hot Country Songs at No. 60 last week and this week moves up two notches, to No. 58. First verse is about learning to ride a bike, second's about standing at the altar, third's about her Dad dying in his hospital bed, and it is not the first country song ever to deal with those three themes, but it'll choke people up anyway. "Try" has some Journey -style vocal drama; "Baby You're Back" is her boogie stomp. One MySpace friend asks for help and support "from our Native communities and all of us proud Canadians"; another raves "I just saw your video on TV over the weekend. I thought...is that a native country singer? Sure enough... you are!!!!" Aboriginal CKCU in Ottawa wants to play her songs. People are excited, and they should be.

Crystal Shawanda [MySpace]

THE DODOS
In his excellent 1996 book The Song of the Dodo, science essayist David Quammen attributes the dodo's circa-1667 extinction at least partially to what he calls "ecological naïveté"; i.e., the species had rarely faced predators on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, so when first the Portuguese and later the Dutch arrived, the big-bootied birds were too trusting to put up a struggle. Though their basically unboilable meat was often dismissed as "disgusting," Quammen laments that "tough or tender, the dodo was never quite disgusting enough for its own good." Anyway, the songs of these surviving San Francisco-based Dodos sound considerably less interesting. The duo's Visiter entered Heatseekers at No. 43 last week and this week jumps to No. 31; Pitchfork gave it an 8.5, claiming they're innovators of "campus-quad pop, art-punk, and communal, lo-fi folk," but all I hear are your usual timid indie twerps aiming for anthemic but settling on anorexic. Primary downfall is the vocals, which show less life than the intermittently percolating instrumental parts—the beginning of "Jodi" has some '70s Who in it, though not as much as "Rich Kid Blues" by the Raconteurs. The Dodos' MySpace calls their genre "happy hardcore." How droll.

The Dodos [MySpace]

More potential stars of the future, burning up the bottom of the top of Billboard's charts:

BALLGREEZY
I wouldn't think greezy balls would be an attribute one would want to advertise, but "Shone," this Miami (Little Haiti, to be precise) rapper's "smash hit"—that's what his MySpace page calls it; hey, it entered the R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart at No. 99 last week, after all—is super catchy. And if the first line of the remix featuring Rick Ross is to be believed, it is addressed to Lil Mama! It's also about going to the club, popping pills, and meeting someone who will "follow me home and suck me off," greeziness or no. A fellow named Boss B performs an intricate dance routine to it in the video posted below:



Ballgreezy [MySpace]

LONESOME THUG LADY
Or, as her MySpace page spells it, *L®NS©ME THUG L?DY*™ AINT LOOKIN 4 A HANDOUT!, born in El Paso, now based in Fairfax, Virginia ("the heart of the 703"). "Down 4 Whateva" was No. 14 last week on Billboard's Hot Singles Sales chart, which tracks actual physical singles, not those download things. At any rate, she is apparently lonesome, a thug, and a lady, all in one, which adds up to an interesting mixture especially if you toss in a few tattoos. Not to mention "an independent solo musician until my brother is released from incarceration." The Mantronix-reminiscent electro-funk tinkling in both her mini-hit and "Me Against The Gun" sound ominous enough, and she enjoys making threats: rhymes "don't trust your dick" with "gon' cut that bitch."

Lonesome Thug Lady [MySpace]

FIREFLIGHT
These Orlando kids (two girls, three guys) entered Top Christian Albums at No. 15 last week, and this week they're No. 27 on the Heatseekers chart; way to hang in there! On their album cover the more zombie-eyed blonde transports an oversized candle, and needless to say they sound a lot like Evanescence or Flyleaf—urgent female power-ballad emoting over suburban-mall goth-metal bombast. They are involved in campaigns against "cutting" (watch out, Lonesome Thug Lady!) and Cambodian sex slavery, and their album's Bionic Woman-broadcast title track "Unbreakable" is said to be sung from the point of view of an adulteress saved by Jesus from being stoned to death. Spring shows are scheduled at several coffeehouses and Protestant churches, a Salvation Army, and something called the "Creation Festival" in Shirleysburg, Pa. MySpace comments come from friends such as "Llamas r CUTE!!!" (which is true!), "Wear your theology on your Theolotee!!!," and "Eileen: Boo Boo Bunny Expert." But despite their name, Fireflight do not cover Final Solutions' excellent song "I'm A Lightning Bug."

Fireflight [MySpace]

SAVING ABEL
Not Christian rockers. In fact, they share an obsession with Ballgreezy: "I'm so addicted to the things you do when you're going down on me between the sheets." Hinderback-style clod-rock from Mississippi, seeking heat at No. 22 with their self-titled album this week; and here you thought touring with Sick Puppies couldn't sell records. They sure have lots of slutty-looking MySpace friends, though. And OK, "New Tattoo," about what happened with a pierced 5'6" hitch-hiker during a summer '96 road trip—"she unzipped her pants and said lookee here"—kinda kicks dumbass ass. Too bad they do slow songs.

Saving Abel [MySpace]

BODEANS
Wow, these old snores are still around? They must be, seeing how their appropriately titled new He & He Records album Still entered the Billboard 200 at a staggering No. 194 last week. 22 years ago, their bland Wisconsin roots schlock was the toast of flyover-state rock critics; Love and Hope and Sex and Dreams finished No. 21 in the Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll in '86, though nobody born since then has heard of the band. But now they're apparently up to eight studio albums, their (MP3s available!) new one is "once again" produced by T-Bone Burnett, and their MySpace page lists Woody Allen and Sting and Emmylou Harris as friends, not to mention some cowgirl named Achishalom who is seemingly fond of handcuffs. Who knew? Glad to hear they made a career of it. The music is still timid Wisconsin roots schlock, though. (And I say that, by the way, as a middle-aged Midwestern guy who worships at the altar of early John Cougar.)

Bodeans [MySpace]

ROYAL SCOTS DRAGOON GUARDS
"The Pipes and Drums of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, Scotland's only tank regiment, have signed a record deal with Universal Music, home of artists from Eminem to Pavarotti," we learn on the MySpace page for this happening young act's new album Spirit of the Glen, which re-entered the Top World chart at No. 9 last week, and checks in as this week's No. 97 Heatseeker. "The disc of traditional Scottish tunes and classical numbers has inspired soldiers for centuries, from the battle of Waterloo to the assault into Basra in 2003." I bet you didn't even know CDs existed centuries ago! Well, in Scotland they did! "it's a gr8 album," their MySpace mate Gary Mac Falconer raves. "plus you got some fab vocals on it." For instance, they perform "Mull of Kintyre," which went nowhere in the U.S. when Wings first did it in 1977 since nobody understood what the hell its words were about, but which topped the British charts for the next two decades. What a canny cover choice for stateside success!

Spirit Of The Glen [MySpace]

REBEL SOULJAHZ
I read "Souljahz" as "soul jazz" at first, but I bet it's meant to be pronounced "soldiers," right? Anyway: Not soul or jazz or bagpipes, but mellow multi-harmony reggae from Hawaii! Bubba, Will, Mike and Kulani may well weigh in at half-a-ton between them, and the 709 copies that Nielsen SoundScan says their Nothing To Hide album sold makes it the No. 115 Heatseeker this week. They croon about "keeping the vibe" and "skanking the night away" at their "Irie beach party," and Mike wears an XXL Bob Marley T-shirt.

Rebel Souljahz [MySpace]

TEYANA TAYLOR
This "multitalented 17-year-old"s Jazze Pha-produced single, which snuck into the R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart at No. 100 last week, is titled "Google Me." So I tried, and I got a link to "WikiAnswers: What is taylor swift's phone number." Then I corrected my spelling of Teyana's first name, which led me to her MySpace page, which opens with Teyana reciting her phone number, or at least her "Jack Up," which is (678) 701-4342. The "teen president" from "the Planet of Harlem" digs Star Trek and My Chemical Romance. Sitting on the bus stop in her ice cream top she can make the traffic stop, she boasts in another bubbly tune, seemingly inspired by both L.L.'s "Around the Way Girl" and the Pack's "Vans." Best of all, she taught Beyoncé how to Chicken Noodle Soup!

Teyana Taylor [MySpace]

So the concept here, this week and every fortnight hence, is a scorecard for artists new to the charts—generally ones nobody never heard of before, though somebody must be buying their music. The means of selection will be simple: Go for acts with the goofiest names, which in a best-case scenario will correspond with entertaining stuff on MySpace pages and in YouTube videos. If true artistry is stumbled on in the meantime, I'll admit it.

A disclosure, before I start: The charts I'm using, inevitably, come from Billboard—a publication where, until recently, I toiled as a senior editor, and where I occasionally still do freelance editing work, though I promise that fact will not sway my choices.

Ready, set, go!

ALGEBRA
Math-rock obviously, right? Wrong! She—last named Blessett and #47 on the Heatseekers chart this week with her Purpose album—is an "r&b/soul/acoustic singer from Atlanta." In the first song on her MySpace page, "Halfway" (see, she likes fractions, too!), her DJ promises to take her "back to the old school." And okay, does sound vaguely retro-nuevo, I guess. Second MySpace song is an absurdly slow "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," not as good as Santa Esmeralda's version. Lots of encouraging congratulations in the comments section, including one from somebody who bought Algebra's album "off of Zune last night." And "UPS truck drivers in Indy" love her, too!

Algebra [MySpace]

GLASSES MALONE
Debuted last week at No. 85 on the R&B/Hip-Hop singles chart with the DJ Toomp-produced "Certified," featuring Akon. Gruff rapper from Watts. His single builds up some passably generic momentum and melodrama—and shockingly, Akon contributes a high-pitched chorus hook. But what's really intriguing about him is that he does not wear glasses! Which at least explains why he's not called Four-Eyes Malone.

Glasses Malone [MySpace]

FETTES BROT
Their name translates as "fat bread," and their "Bettina (Zieh Dir Bitte...)" slipped onto the Eurochart's Single Sales at No. 14 last week. Their homepage has three zany men (including one with three eyes) dressed up in provocative women's underthings (including one outfit with cassette-taped bosoms). Apparently they are a German trio, like Trio before them. Their video, allegedly filmed at Hamburg's "Ero-Tec Sing Porn Club" in the year 2020, features androgynous, bald, salamander-like models performing Soul Train lines and eventually growing heavy metal hair so they can bang their heads to the semi-rousing computer pop with an unexpectedly human chorus.

Fettes Brot [Official Site]


GHOSTLAND OBSERVATORY
Electro-emo from Austin, who knew? Also, oh yeah: "not a band, but an agreement between two friends to create something that not only heals their beat-driven hearts, but pleases their rock 'n roll souls." Oh boy. Robotique Majestique is Heatseeker No. 22 this week. The vocal in "Dancing On My Groove" has some tuneful bite to it, but sorry dudes, this is nowhere near as "ballsy" (a word Ghostland Obervatory seem to like) as Fettes Brot. Germans have been doing this stuff a lot longer than Texans. Clever how they list Los Tigres Del Norte as an influence on their MySpace, though.

Ghostland Observatory [MySpace]

LOS TERRIBLES DEL NORTE
Now this is what Texans know how to do! Wear matching cowboy hats and cowboy shirts and play accordion polkas! "El Corrido De Juan Martha" is a catchy one, too, but it's the only song on their seemingly outdated MySpace page. There are plenty of "glitter graphics" and baby pictures in the comments section, however, plus a note from a woman named Izzy who says "look who went to our high school and is now gay...He's still hot though." Anyway, La Mejor Colecion De Cumbias has a No. 30 Heatseeker entry this week—higher than Dengue Fever! I'm not sure what's so "terrible" about them. But they do occasionally prominently feature chickens in their videos and nooses on their album covers.

Los Terribles Del Norte [MySpace]

JO JO JORGE FALCÓN
Los Mejores 99 Chistes Vol. 1 entered the Heatseekers chart last week at No. 43 then jumped to No. 36 this week. So, assuming Jo Jo was a bilingual bird of prey, I visited his MySpace, which claims he's 93 years old and hails from Mexico. The photo suggests he's also a cross-eyed, angry codger who wears a formal bowtie and a giant baby bottle nipple on his head. Makes crazy faces, too; fun for the whole family. No songs, but a band plays behind him during the standup routine in the linked YouTube vid.

Jo Jo Jorge Falcon [MySpace]

DEATH ANGEL
Actually, I already knew who these guys are. I even listened to an album by them before: Ultraviolence, 21 years ago, when they were adolescent Filipino-American San Francisco Metallica fans. Now they're middle-aged Filipino-American San Francisco Metallica fans, making their big comeback with Killing Season, our nation's No. 21 Heatseeker this week. But despite not being kids anymore, they still have band-branded skateboards available on their MySpace page. First song there, "Dethroned," thrashes hookfully enough. (Did you know there is a "thrash revival" this year? Well, now you do.) "Your fucken new cd is the shit," a friend named "burn" tells them in the comments. "It makes me proud to be a thrasher. So thrash on through the seemingly endless time." (I'm sure relieved he hedged that bet with "seemingly," aren't you?)

Death Angel [MySpace]

THE TREWS
Entered Canadian album chart at No. 4 last week with No Time For Later. Clogged-up Nova Scotian post-Black Crowes trudge-rock with a glob or two of funk and country in its gills. A comment below their current video on YouTube argues that, like the Guess Who and Tragically Hip, "they actually wanna sound Canadian, unlike your American wannabes." Strangely, though, they do not sing in lumberjack accents.

The Trews [MySpace]

FOUR LETTER LIE
I'm not sure what the four-letter lie is; maybe "trew." Their What A Terrible Thing To Say entered Heatseekers at No. 31 last week. Minneapolis "Rock/Alternative/Hardcore", which adds up to oafish screamo grunting and whining with occasional proggy breaks tossed in. MySpace "influences" qualify as product placement: Red Wall Screen Printing, Framus Amplifiers, Collin Hughes Photography. And this spring, they're playing the City Church in Mobile, Alabama; Skateland in Westland, Michigan; and Jerry's Pizza in Bakersfield, California. They sure get around!

Four Letter Lie [MySpace]