Travis’ Two Cents (In Five Parts)

Written by

I’m Travis Holcombe and you can catch me on the air on Tuesday nights at midnight~3AM (which is technically Wednesday morning). Here are my two cents:

1) For all of you lamenting the dissolution of R.E.M. — GOOD NEWS! There’s still a little music left in the tank. Three songs to be exact. Rolling Stone is now streaming R.E.M.‘s latest (and *last*) single entitled “We All Go Back To Where We Belong“.

The track will appear alongside two other new songs, “A Month Of Saturdays” and “Hallelujah” on R.E.M.‘s retrospective album Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982-2011 due out on November 15. Something about the fact that this is (possibly) their last single makes the song feel all the more precious and resonant.

2) From break-ups to make-ups, news has surfaced that Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt, collectively known as Everything But The Girl, re-teamed to do a cover of the xx‘s “Night TIme“. From the sound of it, the duo pretty much picked up where they left off.

Tracey Thorn – Night Time (The xx Cover) by MergeRecords

Night Time” will see its official release next month on Tracey Thorn‘s forthcoming “Night Time” EP. The EP will also feature contributions from Visionquest and Charles Webster. Don’t sleep.

3) Hey, did you hear the one about MC Hammer starting up his new search engine? It’s not a set-up to a joke, it’s actually happening. The company, called WireDoo, is currently in pre-Beta testing. In other news, be on the lookout for the announcement of my new social networking venture in the next few weeks. Because Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and all those other ones really aren’t enough, right?

4) On November 21, The Rolling Stones will unleash an expanded version of their 1978 album Some Girls. Arguably their last great album, the Some Girls deluxe reissue will feature remastered original tracks and 12 unreleased tracks. “No Spare Parts” is one of those unreleased tracks and you can listen to it below.

No one is saying it’s worthy of inclusion on the Stones’ greatest hits (it is a cut that didn’t make the cut on the original album after all), but it’s not bad either. There is a mini-controversy swirling among some Stones diehards privy to the original bootleg of “No Spare Parts” who say that the track has been retouched and re-edited from its original form.

Check out the grittier, original version of “No Spare Parts” and judge for yourself here.

5) Have you ever been faced with the problem of wanting to ride your bike, but also wanting to listen to your records? Well, the ingenious folks over at Feats Per Minute got you covered! Behold!

Apparently the FPM team has designed the bike so the record will not skip. The last tricky hurdle to cross is that you have to pedal at the right speed or you wind up with a Chipmunks or spooky Halloween record version of your album. Still…this is progress. Maybe we can get this team to revisit Chrysler‘s ill-fated “Highway Hi-Fi Phonograph” idea so I can listen to some jams in my car, too.

You can listen to Travis Holcombe‘s other 98¢ on the radio at KCRW on Tuesday nights/Wednesday mornings midnight~3AM.