Downloads

Surfing the Web for new music, video and MP3 downloads can be a serious time investment. Tips from Times staff and contributors will help take the drag out of your click-and-drag. Some downloads may contain explicit lyrics. Except as noted, all of the selections are free and available online at latimes.com/downloads.

-- CASEY DOLAN

“Direct Hit”

Art Brut

www.myspace.com/artbrut

Eddie Argos, the Bournemouth Blatherer, is like an Oxbridge undergrad taking the mickey out of everyone in the local snog, daft and fluthered on the local brew. Few frontmen today possess such a charming mixture of the soapbox rants of Mark E. Smith and the early Robyn Hitchcock’s half-swallowed vocals. Argos is a true gem and backed by one of the most enthusiastically fun bands around. Crispy guitars and a pumping rhythm section make “Direct Hit” instantly appealing. Listen to the “woo-woo-hoos” on the chorus, a nod to XTC, who were themselves nodding to the Beach Boys. Art Brut graces the Troubadour stage tonight.

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“Gunshots Fired at G-Unit’s Spider-Loc Music Video Shoot of ‘Blutiful’ ”

Spider-Loc

vids.myspace.com/index.cfmfuseactionvids.individualvideoid20234235 52

The song is a rap exposition on the color blue, and within the lyrics are references to the coke trade and guns, but it’s not an inherently violent song -- more like a this-is-what-it-is vehicle. Reality intrudes on art, however, when guns are fired during the video shoot for the song. Car alarms go off in this Compton neighborhood, people scream and everyone flies for cover. Co-director LaMarck cradles the film camera instead of protecting himself. It’s unclear whether the shooting is in response to the video filming or some local fracas, but many rounds are fired, and thankfully no one is hurt. LaMarck comically insinuates at the end of the video that he set the whole thing up as a director.

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“Heroine”

Blonde Redhead

play.rhapsody.com/blonderedhead/23/heroinedidAutoplayBouncetrue

Haunting as wind chimes in a twilight breeze, with a resurrection of the Vocoder made famous by Kraftwerk, this is a secondary track buried near the end of the new album, “23”. Pity. It should be the first heard, such is its beauty. “Roland takes the sea, but he goes without me,” sings Kazu Makino with such melancholy as the stream of arpeggiated guitars descends into bleeps. Who is Roland? Orlando Furioso? The hero of Roncevaux Pass in the 12th century? The lyrics reveal little, but the emotion is elegantly presented.

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“Bacalao Con Pan”

Irakere

www.waxingdeep.org

A sublime compilation of Cuban funk from the ‘70s and ‘80s, “Si, Para Usted: The Funky Beats of Revolutionary Cuba, Vol. 1” is being released on the small label Waxing Deep, also the title of a weekly radio show and podcast devoted to jazz, funk, Latin and other music. Listen to the wah-wah guitar playing against Cuban percussion in Irakere’s first big hit, as if Isaac Hayes took Shaft to the Caribbean. Hear the unison guitar-organ lines that sound like the Mothership landed with both George Clinton and Frank Zappa on board. Marvel at the psychedelic organ solo that would not be out of place on a Doors album. This is just an mp3 and not downloadable, but the compilation promises many more such gems.

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“Old Hag You Have Killed Me”

The Bothy Band

www.youtube.com/watchvXgXwIIHAmawmoderelatedsearch

It can be vigorously argued that this was the greatest traditional Irish group (pace, Chieftains fans) or maybe even the greatest Irish group ever (Ask Bono about that!). This video from 1977 shows them at the height of their powers, with every virtuosic member playing a medley of jigs, during the period when Kevin Burke had replaced Tommy Peoples on fiddle. Flutist Matt Molloy later joined the Chieftains and the band eventually scattered to the four winds, but when will someone post a video on YouTube.com from Dublin’s Meeting Place circa 1975? That would be a drop of the hard stuff.

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casey.dolan@latimes.com