Yalla Yalla - New CRACKER Video!

From the forthcoming (May 5th, 2009) album, Sunrise In The Land Of Milk And Honey. Preorder it here. This is the first video, Yalla Yalla.



From the Youtube page, by David Lowrey:

"Yalla" is a common arabic expression, loosely meaning "hurry up" and often used by american soldiers in place of "hurry up" or "let's go". Like every war Iraq war soldiers have developed their own unique slang based on their experiences. Oftentimes these slang words creep into our nations vocabulary many years after the original conflict. ."Yalla" or "Yalla Yalla" may not become as common as RADAR, AWOL or SNAFU but it will certainly be used by soldiers for many years to come. This song takes no position on the war in Iraq*. It is a exploration and a celebration of a certain kind of bravado and swagger one finds in the speech of soldiers. I find it nicely matches the kind of swagger often exhibited by rock, blues and hip hop singers. I suppose that is why it was so much fun (and relatively easy) to take this arcane slang and anacronyms and build a song out of it. If I got some of it wrong, well i apologize. There seemed to be some disagreement among my small sample of soldiers (and marines) about the pronunciation or precise meaning of some of the terms i use. case in point whether anyone really refers to Camp Anaconda as Bombaconda, or the precise definition (and spelling!) of a "pogue". My questioning at the Atlanta airport set off a heated argument between two servicemen. It's all in good fun, so don't kick my ass. please.

Finally most of this footage was taken from YouTube. Who knew the internets were full of soldiers marines, sailors and airmen dancing, lip syncing and headbanging to their favorite music? IF YOU ARE IN THIS AND DON"T WANT TO BE: politely write us and we will edit you out.

David Lowery

* Due diligence: I opposed the war in Iraq. I viewed it as a distraction from the fight in Afghanistan. However now that we are in Iraq I believe we shouldn't leave until there is a stable and humane government in that country. I'll leave the notions of timetables, troop levels etc etc to the professionals.

Gothic Strawberry Ice Cream Nightmare Daydream!!!

We all have to cut back in this depression/recession. I'm no exception. Like everyone else, I'm trying to get less money to go just as far. I've made one extremely frivolous purchase, however. I took a week to decide whether I should or not and I decided it would be my personal (5 month early) Birthday present to me this year (I am planning one more personal Birthday present closer to my Birthday, but more on that this June). Was it a Television..? A new game system..? A full home renovation..? That one I actually need, but no.

No, no, no. What I bought was much more frivolous than that and having them has made me very happy, so this also counts as a mental health purchase. I bought Tommy Feburary6 and Tommy Heavenly6's Greatest Hits box sets. They cost 6,666 Yen each (that's nearly $70 each, but I scored them for $64 each) and are about as deluxe as a box set can get.

The theme here is each box set is a High School class in Tommy. Tommy February6's box is entitled "Strawberry Cream Soda Pop Daydream" (also the title of the new track on the CD / DVD and Tommy Heavenly6's box is entitled "Gothic Melting Ice Cream Darkness Nightmare". Each set arrives in a heavy, glossy slipcase that's dimensions are 14 1/2" high X 9 1/2" wide X 2 3/4" deep. The insides of the set are covered in polka dot print. The box itself contains everything one needs to be enrolled in Tommy's classes. Each set includes A lyric booklet, a 16 page Composition notebook that actually serves as a picture book (4 pics per page), a big sticker sheet, 10 photo clear files and a quality loose leaf binder with enrollment information embossed on a metal plate. Oh, yeah, each set comes with a DVD and a Blu Spec CD.

Now, this whole Blu Spec CD thing... I don't know if you've heard of this or not, since it's really only being utilized in Japan right now, but it's basically this: a standard Red Book CD master is burned with a BluRay laser instead of a standard laser. This, it's reported, creates virtually no jitter to the actual pits the laser reads in a CD, so the playback is of a higher quality. Did I notice any real difference? I really can't say I did. I have a mid to high end playback setup, so I should be able to pick up a marked difference, if there was one. Maybe a side by side comparison will be in order.

I did, however, notice that the DVD's did look remastered. The images were a bit clearer that I've been used to on past Tommy DVDs.

I'm glad I bought them, all in all. Yeah, it set me back a bit, but I got the feeling that when the economy recovers, these limited edition sets are going to go up sharply in price... or not.

Usually a greatest hits package flags the end of a career, however a cruise by CDJapan reveals the Tommy train just isn't going to stop. Tommy Heavenly6 3rd, as it's titled there, is going to be released on April 29th, 2009. Click on this link to CDJapan to Preorder it.